New Age Steppers - Love Forever (LP)

Love Forever lands with the kind of bittersweet weight that only a posthumous record can carry. It is the New Age Steppers’ return after decades away, a 2012 On-U Sound release produced by Adrian Sherwood and built around the final vocal recordings of Ari Up, who died in 2010. The history here matters. New Age Steppers were always a collision of post-punk nerve and dub science, a loose London collective helmed by Sherwood with Ari Up as its most electric presence. Love Forever does not just dust off that story for nostalgia. It gives it a last, vivid chapter.

Sherwood’s production is the anchor. You can feel the room, the springy snares, the bite of a hi-hat that is sent sailing into a pool of echo, the bassline that sits like a heartbeat under everything. It is classic On-U craft, dub as method rather than genre signifier, with details darting in and out of the mix like street sounds when a club door opens. What makes it hit harder is Ari Up cutting through all that smoke and reverb with a voice that still sounds like it is leaning forward, laughing at danger, demanding more space. She was fearless in The Slits and remained fearless here. You hear the same sing-talk bite, the same sly jokes and sudden yelps, but there is also a tug of wisdom, a lived-in steadiness that suits these songs.

The record never settles on one mood. There are tracks that strut on a rock-steady skank before exploding into bright synth chatter. Others ride a half-time step, almost weightless, then drop into submarine-low bass. Sherwood keeps it playful. He will let a guitar lick flicker by once and never return, or pull a vocal phrase into a vapor trail of delay that becomes a hook in itself. The feel is unmistakably 21st century On-U, not a museum piece. You can imagine these rhythms shaking a small club system at 2 a.m., sweat fogging the windows, the crowd catching Ari’s choruses on the fly.

Context deepens the pull. Recorded over several years and assembled after Ari’s passing, Love Forever reads like a love letter between collaborators who trusted each other’s instincts. The original New Age Steppers records from the early eighties were cross-Atlantic exchanges in sound, the London-Jamaica dialogue that defined a whole corner of post-punk. This album keeps that conversation going. It nods to roots reggae and dancehall patterns, yet the percussion can scrape like industrial metal, and little shards of post-punk guitar still poke out of the mix. If you know those first records, you will hear the lineage. If you do not, this still feels alive and unruly.

A few cuts jump out as instant shop-floor recommendations. One rides a clipped keyboard pattern that seems to fold in on itself while Ari tosses out lines that turn from teasing to urgent in a breath. Another eases into a minor-key sway and finds Sherwood peeling instruments away until it is just a ghost of rhythm and a voice in the dark. There is a streak of humor throughout, the kind Ari always carried, and it stops the record from becoming a mausoleum. Even when the lyrics tilt toward defiance or memory, the beats keep moving.

Critics clocked that energy when it came out. The Quietus and other outlets praised Love Forever as a fitting send-off, yes, but also as a proper New Age Steppers album, which matters more. It is not just a memorial service. It is a record you can play loud and play often. If you care about that On-U axis, or the way post-punk learned to breathe with reggae’s lungs, this belongs on the shelf.

On the vinyl front, Love Forever vinyl is the way to hear it. The low end blooms, the little production tricks feel tactile, and the artwork looks right at 12 inches. If you are crate-digging and spot New Age Steppers vinyl, grab it. If you are not near a Melbourne record store, you can always buy New Age Steppers records online; plenty of shops that ship vinyl records Australia wide will have it alongside other New Age Steppers albums on vinyl. However you get it, play it through without skipping. The arc reveals itself, and when the last echoes fade you are left with the feeling that a singular voice got the farewell it deserved, handled by the producer who understood it best. That is love forever, no slogan needed.