Among the veteran bands that emerged in the 1990s and have not yet shown signs of creative fatigue, Blonde Redhead deserves mention. Their career is entering a fresh moment of inspiration, at least since 2007, although many will insist there has never been a dip.
Their new single continues to shine. “Blood Spilled” gathers all the elements that make Blonde Redhead’s sound recognizable, but rearranges them to sound, once again, different.
Today’s Track of the Day is one of those pieces that gradually grows on you. It opens wrapped in a dreamy indie rock atmosphere, with distorted guitars and synthesizers drifting around Kazu Makino’s voice, before finally building to an epic crescendo, almost a tornado of emotion.
The lyrics seem to orbit around death, mourning, and the bond with those who are no longer here. Makino sings about “blood spilled over the ocean,” asks “did you abandon me?” and ultimately finds solace in the idea of a reunion: “one day I will see you again.” Before that, she asserts that “my time, my pain and my joy” belong to this life “until I leave this body.”
Makino herself has explained that she wrote the song after a period marked by losses. She maintains that death marks the end of the body, but not of the soul, and that she continues to sense the presence of people who are no longer with us. For her, “Blood Spilled” speaks to the free will of both the soul and the body, but also to making the most of the time we have here: “This is our moment, our pain and our joy. They belong to us.”
Presumably the first advance from a forthcoming album that remains unannounced, “Blood Spilled” is issued alongside a B-side, “Crimson Door,” precisely the “crimson door” Makino invites listeners to open in one of the song’s lines.
