Black Sands has always lived in the push-and-pull of contrasts, the glimmer of cinematic light against shadows of heartbreak, the lush grandeur of pop spectacle tempered with raw confession. Helmed by LA songwriter and producer Andrew Balfour, the project has, over the last half-decade, carved out a niche somewhere between the neon angst of The Weeknd, the sleek gloss of The 1975, and Post Malone’s after-hours vulnerability. But Balfour’s latest chapter isn’t about blowing speakers or flexing maximalism. Instead, it’s about paring things back until only the essentials remain: memory, love, loss, and the fragile magic of being alive.
This pivot was forged in fire. In the span of a few years, Balfour lost both his sister and brother to addiction, a shattering grief that silenced the noise of the outside world. What emerged from the stillness was music written not in studios stocked with synth racks, but on a simple guitar, late at night, after everything else had fallen away. These songs sit at the intersection of grief and growth, heavy with memory yet stubbornly reaching toward light.
Returning with his latest single, ‘Making Memories’ is the kind of track that sneaks up on you — part country-pop shimmer, part wistful folk, part pure pop sugar rush. It’s radiant and cinematic, but not in a Hollywood sense; more like golden hour spilling through the window of a dive bar, or the blurry perfection of a night you never want to end. The guitars twang with warmth, the drums glide rather than punch, and Brandon Chase’s vocal rides somewhere between tender storyteller and quiet confidant. It’s music for long drives with the windows down, for the soft ache of nostalgia you don’t mind leaning into.
Black Sands’ new direction feels like a departure without losing identity. The guitars are up front, the folk-country DNA unmistakable, but the production still drips with modernity, widescreen, immersive, alive. It’s music that holds both loss and hope in the same breath, unafraid to admit that beauty often comes with bruises.
‘Making Memories’ may be a song about living in the moment, but it also feels like the start of something bigger: a reclamation of self, a reminder that even in broken places, joy can still bloom.