Ben Rankin lives, bleeds, and bottles it up for the world to consume. On his new single, “All Is Well In Hell,” he serves up a gut-kick of feeling packaged in searing production and defiant vocal performances that cannot be overlooked.
The track snarls with intensity right from the opening second. It’s brash, raucous, and sounds into the print of all the right spots, but there’s a soul strove way beneath the noise. Ben seems to draw from an emotional well of feelings, pouring them out in each line as though it might be the last he’ll ever say. His voice cracks with potency and purpose; it’s cathartic, urgent, and gripping.
And what adds extra wow to the plate is that “All Is Well In Hell” was conceived in Ben’s home studio. Honest and stripped of the sheen and pretense of big-label production, this song came about painstakingly. Ben set things up, tinkering and throwing sound upon sound with excitingly new plugins until it landed correctly. The result is a sonic blast that could fill any room it was recorded in. It is a monument to what passion and imagination can accomplish in delightful (if sometimes chaotic) ways.
Sonically, the song flits between nostalgia and modern grit. There is a distant tributary of old-school angst here, but it’s adorned in a new, dynamic sound design that makes it unmistakably 2023. That contrast between the sense of something old and new makes the song addictive. You will go back to relieve that rush.
“All Is Well In Hell” is a declaration. Attribution to the fact that sometimes, in the chaos, we find clarity. And for Ben Rankin, it is evidence that doing things your way still counts. At a time when everything seems so overproduced and polished, this record is beautifully flawed, human, and precisely what the music scene needs right now.