A.A.Williams - Forever Blue (LP) - Silver Vinyl

Drop the needle on Forever Blue and the room seems to exhale. Those opening minutes settle into a slow, heavy drift that feels like dusk in sound, a tide that pulls you in before you realize how far from shore you’ve gone. A.A. Williams has been labeled many things over the last few years, but “singer-songwriter” hardly covers the way she builds these songs. Her voice floats at candlelight level, intimate and close, while the guitars swell and bruise around it. It’s the sweet spot between post-rock patience and gothic folk ache, the sort of atmosphere that fans of Chelsea Wolfe, Emma Ruth Rundle, or Mono will recognize, yet she makes it feel personal, unhurried, and quietly commanding.

Forever Blue arrived in July 2020 through Bella Union, a debut full-length that expanded on the promise of her 2019 self-titled EP and her collaborative single with Mono, Exit in Darkness. The timing felt eerie. A record about distance, failed communication, and the hard work of carrying grief entered a world that suddenly had far too much of all three. Even so, Williams keeps the spotlight on craft rather than confession. You can hear her classical background in the way strings, piano, and voice interlock, each part simple on its own, all of it forming a patient architecture that holds even when the guitars start to roar.

“Melt” was the first song that really hooked me. It sounds sleepy at first, a lull that laces into a low storm. Then the chorus hits and the guitars press down with real weight, not to bludgeon, but to underline what the lyric hints at, that feeling when you put on a brave face and it still cracks. “All I Asked Was You” lands just as hard, a plea that never quite becomes a scream. Williams avoids melodrama. She sings like someone who has already spent the tears and is now sorting through what’s left. That restraint draws you closer. You turn the volume up, and the record keeps meeting you with fresh detail, tiny glints of piano and bowed lines slipping into the corners.

What separates this album from a lot of heavy, slow music is how playable it is. The sequencing breathes. Crescendos arrive naturally, like weather, and the quiet parts feel purposeful rather than tentative. A lot of that comes down to production choices that favor space. Guitars are thick, but the low end never muddies the vocal. Drums arrive with a measured, human pulse. When the strings come in, they feel like the room itself is humming. Play the Forever Blue vinyl and you get even more of that dimension, the air between instruments becoming part of the performance.

UK press picked up on this balance. Kerrang! praised the record’s dynamic heft and emotional clarity, and they weren’t alone. Across reviews there was a sense of a fully formed voice arriving. It didn’t feel like a tryout for heavier music or a folk record dressing up in distortion. It felt like its own lane, one Williams has continued to refine with later releases. Hearing that arc now makes the album even more satisfying, like a snapshot of the moment she learned how far her songs could stretch without breaking.

I love how cleanly the lyrics cut. They avoid big metaphors and trend toward direct lines you can carry around with you. Paired with guitars that bloom and retreat, that clarity leaves a mark. There is melancholy all over this record, but there is also resolve. On a late-night spin, with the lights down and the city outside quieting, it can feel like company. The songs sit with you rather than push you somewhere you are not ready to go.

If you collect A.A. Williams albums on vinyl, this one is essential. The jacket art sets the mood before the first chord, and the pressing does right by the low frequencies and the layered harmonies. I’ve recommended it to people browsing in our shop who come in asking where to start with dark, heavy singer-songwriters, and it rarely leaves their hands. Even friends overseas who order vinyl records Australia stock from their favorite Melbourne record store end up circling back for this title. If you prefer to buy A.A. Williams records online, look for a clean copy of the Forever Blue vinyl, then cue it up on a calm evening and let it take the room.

Forever Blue is the kind of debut that feels lived in. Not flashy, not hurried, just deeply considered songs played with care and conviction. It rewards patience, and it asks for honesty in return. Put it on, give it your time, and you may find it giving something back. A.A. Williams vinyl tends to do that.