INVISIBLE CHAMPAGNE by FOREVER STONED

Record Review: Invisible Champagne — Forever Stoned
By Turkish

There are records you listen to, and then there are records that kick in the door at 3 a.m., demand a cigarette, and start confessing their sins. Invisible Champagne by Forever Stoned is the latter. It hisses and hums with the neon menace of the 1980s—big hair, bigger amps, synthesizers glowing like dashboard lights on a stolen car heading west with no map and no mercy.

This is not nostalgia. Nostalgia is safe. This EP is volatile.

Velocity of Virtue opens like a street race between faith and horsepower. The guitars scream with that hot-wired ’80s snarl—equal parts guitar bravado and late-night cable paranoia—while the synths pulse underneath like a corrupted heartbeat. It’s a song about wanting to do the right thing, yes, but also about the lie that righteousness can outrun consequence. You don’t drive this track. You survive it.

Movin On pretends to be optimistic, but don’t believe it. This is forward motion fueled by exhaustion and cheap gasoline. The chorus rises on a slab of shimmering synthesizer like a sunrise seen through a hangover. The guitar work here is muscular but wounded, bending notes the way a man bends truth when he’s already halfway gone. “Moving on” is not a victory—it’s a reflex.

Then comes A Bar in Chicago, the album’s dirty confession booth. The synths go smoky and the guitar slows into a bluesy stagger, like it’s trying to remember how it got here. This track smells like spilled beer, regret, and a jukebox that only plays songs you didn’t mean to feel. Chicago isn’t a city here; it’s a state of mind—cold, loud, and indifferent to your personal redemption arc.

Finally, Never Gonna Be closes the record with a kind of bruised defiance. This is the sound of acceptance snarling back at fate. The ’80s guitar tone is all sharp edges and clenched teeth, while the synths swell like a synthetic choir singing for the damned. It’s not resignation—it’s a refusal to pretend things were ever supposed to work out.

Invisible Champagne is a toast you can’t see and probably shouldn’t drink, but you do anyway. Forever Stoned has bottled the ghost of the 1980s—not the polished pop-star version, but the back-alley neon one, where ambition and excess share the same bloodstream. This album doesn’t ask for your attention. It takes it, shakes it violently, and leaves you blinking in the afterglow, wondering how the hell you got here and why you want to go back.

Four tracks. No filler. Just loud truths, synthetic dreams, and guitars screaming like they’ve got something to prove.

Drink it fast. It goes down invisible, but it hits hard.

Turkish

Rodney Fehsenfeld and Echo Gordon breathe life into the vibrant, nostalgic soundscapes of the 1980s with their music project, Forever Stoned. These two songwriter/producers infuse their compositions with a captivating blend of heavy guitars and pulsating synthesizers and thoughtful lyrics, crafting a sonic tapestry that pays homage to the era's iconic production styles.