When three underground legends collide like they do with Ashes And Diamonds, sparks are inevitable so get ready for something akin to a controlled detonation on Are Forever. The new band from Daniel Ash (Bauhaus, Love And Rockets, Tones On Tail), Bruce Smith (Public Image Ltd), and Paul Spencer Denman (Sade, Sweetback), is a supergroup born not simply from nostalgia, but from artful restlessness. The result is a record that snarls with menace and sings with melody, a darkly glamorous fusion of post-punk, glam, and noir soul that could only have come from these three.

Ash, whose spectral guitar tones defined the gothic edge of the ’80s, handles vocals, guitars, saxophone, and even E-Bow with the same intensity that made Bauhaus and Love And Rockets cult touchstones. Smith, one of Britain’s most innovative drummers, brings both steadiness and chaos, mixing live percussion with intricate programming that recalls his groundbreaking work with PiL. Denman, the rhythmic anchor behind Sade’s velvety grooves, locks it all down with bass lines that throb like the heartbeat that keeps it all going.

Six years in the making, Are Forever was mixed and engineered by Robert Adam Stevenson (Queens Of The Stone Age, Jane’s Addiction, The Kills). The result is sleek and shadowed; cinematic, sensual, and full of unease. It’s music that moves between smoke and strobe, where guitars glow like neon and drums echo in some half-forgotten club. Lead single “On A Rocka” comes wrapped in style, its video directed by Jake Scott, son of Ridley Scott, who brings his own cinematic touch honed on clips for U2, Oasis, and Radiohead.

Ash describes the project as a kind of rebirth, not a retreat into the past, but a push toward something more futuristic. You can hear it in the textures. The way Smith’s percussion hums like machinery under Denman’s liquid bass, the way Ash’s voice slinks between lament and defiance. It’s not old school goth, it’s more like grown-up darkwave.

Are Forever feels like a meeting point between worlds. The jagged experimentation of post-punk colliding with the sleek sophistication of Sade’s rhythm section, tempered by decades of ups and downs. It’s the sound of three veterans who’ve seen every side of fame and decided to chase beauty instead. After decades in separate orbits, Daniel Ash, Bruce Smith, and Paul Spencer Denman have found something electric in each other’s shadows. Are Forever is a resurrection, a transmission from the edge where style and spirit refuse to die.