Release me from this curse- let my blood flow
As above, we will meet below
Casting a midnight shadow, Bleached Cross opens up their latest single, Blood Moon, with guitars that seem to hang above the song like pale fire, while the drums advance at a funereal pace and the synthesizers spread a cold, metallic glow. The final preview of Wrath, due July 24 through New Morality Zine, finds the Chicago band stretching dark wave toward blackened grandeur without losing the pull of a huge chorus. Every part leans toward catastrophe, yet the song keeps one hand firmly around a love story.
Lyrically, the song traverses fallen kingdoms, fields of impaled bodies, and a private apocalypse populated by obedient demons. Its vampiric imagery carries a conspicuous echo of Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula: a bereaved lover who feels betrayed by God, moves through the remains of Vlad the Impaler’s cruelty, hungers for blood beneath a crimson moon, and vows to find the beloved in any lifetime. The connection lies more closely with Coppola’s romantic reinvention than with Stoker’s original novel, as grief becomes damnation and desire reaches across centuries in search of reunion.
Blood, sacrifice, and eternal return crowd the verses, but Bleached Cross never allows the imagery to collapse into decorative horror. The violence springs from devotion warped beyond reason. Love has outlived the beloved, leaving behind something feral, blasphemous, and prepared to cross any border that death tries to enforce.
“This song is about eternal love, devotion, and the idea of fate bonding people together even beyond death, as love is the one thing death is unable to take away from the living,” says the band. “The ending implies the taking of someone else’s life to ease their suffering, knowing fate will bind you together again in the next life, but it can also be interpreted as killing yourself to be with someone who has passed…both ideas come up in other songs on the album.”
That final ambiguity cuts straight through the song’s gothic romance. Mercy and murder begin to resemble one another; suicide appears as both surrender and reunion. The guitars climb in patient layers, the rhythm section keeps the procession moving, and the synthesizers thicken the air until the closing passage surges outward in a blast of melody and ruin.
The song’s last ascent offers no clean resolution. Instead, Bleached Cross leave the listener inside the vow itself, where love survives by becoming monstrous enough to follow the dead through every kingdom, lifetime, grave, and promised return. Like Dracula mistaking damnation for fidelity, the song makes eternal love inseparable from the curse that sustains it.
Listen below:
Formed remotely in 2019 by Zak and Alex, Bleached Cross grew from a file-sharing project between Chicago and San Diego into a full live band. Their early demos, split with Shamewave, 2022 self-titled LP, and 2024 collaboration with The True Faith gradually fused post-punk, industrial music, blackened hardcore, and noise rock into a severe but flexible language. Blood Moon shows the band handling that language with new confidence.
Recorded with Andy Nelson at Bricktop Recording during 2025, Wrath circles grief, guilt, death, and redemption across ten tracks. Here, those concerns become a feverish vampiric romance, full of crimson mountains, impaled bodies, infernal vows, and impossible loyalty.
Listen to Blood Moon below, and order Wrath here.
Next month, Bleached Cross will team up with Milwaukee screamo band snag for a tour across the U.S. that begins August 4 in Indianapolis, IN, at Healer.
August Tour Dates:
4th – Indianapolis, IN – Healer
5th – Pittsburgh, PA – Roboto
6th – Philadelphia, PA – Deadbirds
7th – Brooklyn, NY – Gold Sounds
8th – Washington, DC – Marx Cafe
9th – Columbus, OH – Dirty Dungarees
10th – Chicago, IL – Casa Cafe
Follow Bleached Cross:
The post “Release Me From This Curse” — Love Never Dies in Bleached Cross’ Vampiric Single “Blood Moon” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.
