Between the teeth of misery
The hunger takes a hold of me
I take my time now I make it right now
ACTORS have always sounded like they knew that the nightclub was going to get closed down by gentrification eventually, which may explain why their new album Our Love Will Live Forever hits with such peculiar force: this time the closing hour has stopped being metaphor, and now indeed is the time to party like there is no tomorrow, because tomorrow is never guaranteed. Mastermind Jason Corbett suffered a serious cardiac emergency while making the record, and suddenly all those polished guitars, black-glass synthesizers, romantic fixations, and doomed little dances had to answer to the wails of an ambulance.
“Getting wheeled into an emergency room and spending days in the cardiac care unit put me in a state of deep reflection,” Corbett reflects. “Would I finish the album? Would I ever be on a stage again? I was given a second chance to cherish every experience and live in the moment. My goal was to bring that energy to the album.”
You can hear it. These songs carry the nervous velocity of somebody who has seen the trapdoor beneath ordinary life and decided to dance directly over it.
The title predates Corbett’s hospitalization. Our Love Will Live Forever is engraved on his grandparents’ tombstone, which already carried enough emotional freight before Death suddenly walked into the studio and pulled up a chair. Afterward, the words became a dare…if everybody knows this grim appointment is coming, then what are you doing with the hours beforehand?
Left On Read is a beautifully petty modern nightmare, romance reduced to glowing glass, silence, and the humiliating authority of an unanswered message. Corbett turns digital abandonment into old-fashioned psychic damage while the band dresses the anxiety in immaculate synths and guitars. Once upon a time heartbreak required somebody to slam a door. Now your phone can ruin an entire evening without making a sound.
Then CTRL starts issuing orders. Its hook has the merciless efficiency of advertising copy, the rhythm grabs the hips before permission has been granted, and guitar lines cut across the synths with sudden flashes of attitude. Depeche Mode’s leather poise, the Human League’s pop nerve, Bootblacks, and the exploratory rush of early Simple Minds can all be detected in the bloodline, but ACTORS have been doing this too long to sound like record collectors arranging their shelves.
“(CTRL) is a rally cry, a reaction to a world spinning out of control,” says Corbett. “Being true to yourself is an act of resistance.”
That sentence could have come off a placard. On the record, it becomes physical.
Elsewhere, memory, desire, fear, and attachment keep colliding without turning the album into some tasteful meditation on mortality suitable for soft lighting and solemn nodding.
Corbett’s production at Jacknife Sound stays beautifully controlled while allowing plenty of abrasion around the edges. Drums land with authority, basslines keep the blood moving, guitars carve openings through the synths, and his voice maintains that familiar balance between romantic composure and somebody quietly coming apart behind it.
By album three, ACTORS have nothing left to prove about belonging to post-punk. Our Love Will Live Forever is after a nastier question: what happens when mortality quits being philosophy and becomes paperwork, hospital lights, machines, and the possibility that your unfinished record stays unfinished?
Their answer makes excellent sense.
Turn it up while you still can.
Our Love Will Live Forever is out now via Artoffact Records, on vinyl, CD, and all major digital and streaming platforms. Listen to the album below and order it here.
Our Love Will Live Forever by ACTORS
ACTORS go on tour throughout Europe and Canada this autumn! The tour takes ACTORS across Europe in September, with stops in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, France, and the UK before heading back to Canada in October. The run includes festival appearances, club shows, and a closing stretch through Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary. Catch them live on the following dates:
September 4 — Berlin, Germany — Lido
September 5 — Leipzig, Germany — NCN Festival
September 8 — Bielefeld, Germany — Movie
September 9 — Bochum, Germany — Die Trompete
September 11 — Cologne, Germany — Club Volta
September 12 — Rotterdam, Netherlands — Baroeg Open Air
September 13 — Russelheim, Germany — Das Rind
September 16 — Martigny, Switzerland — Les Caves
September 18 — Barcelona, Spain — Sala Wolf
September 19 — Madrid, Spain — Nazca
September 20 — Valencia, Spain — 16 Toneladas
September 23 — Paris, France — Le Chinois
September 25 — Manchester, UK — Gorilla
September 26 — Bristol, UK — Strange Brew
September 27 — London, UK — Earth
October 9 — Vancouver, Canada — Rickshaw
October 23 — Edmonton, Canada — Starlite Room
October 24 — Calgary, Canada — Dickens
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The post Vancouver Post-Punk Quartet Actors Release New Album “Our Love Will Live Forever” — Now on Tour in Europe! appeared first on Post-Punk.com.
