With “My Bloody Kisses,” Flowers for Juno continue their slow-burn transformation from underground gothic oddities into one of the most intriguing avant-shadows in modern rock. The Benjó James–led project has always thrived in the twilight zone between genres, but this latest single—arriving December 3rd as their first release since last Halloween’s horror-tinted “Morgue Than Words”—is their most confident act of sonic alchemy yet.
Where “Morgue Than Words” leaned gleefully into its tongue-in-cheek macabre swagger, “My Bloody Kisses” is something far more immersive, a thick, swirling cathedral of noise that pulls equally from shoegaze’s dream logic and gothic metal’s storm-cloud weight. James opens the track with a tightly coiled drum loop before detonating a barrage of flanged and phased guitars that crash in like an avalanche of neon static. It’s a move straight out of the Kevin Shields school of guitar obliteration, but it’s filtered through a distinctly Cure-like sense of melancholic melody—imagine Disintegration funneled through a jet engine.
Vocally, James continues playing with the boundaries of presence and absence. His voice, intentionally submerged beneath the mix, becomes more of a spectral texture than a narrative guide. Bathed in delay, reverb, and a kind of underwater shimmer, his lines rise and vanish like ghost lights through fog. It’s hypnotic, intoxicating, and strangely intimate—an emotional transmission buried inside a collapsing star.
Clocking in at just 3:22, the track moves with the urgency of a fever dream. Waves of distortion and bottle-synth haze crest and break in quick succession, giving the illusion that the song ends almost as soon as it begins. It’s one of those rare singles that seems designed for looping; the moment it cuts out, your ears reach back instinctively, craving that initial drum snap all over again.
The B-side, “Pink Noise,” widens the ambient palette hinted at in the A-track, reinforcing what’s becoming increasingly clear: Flowers for Juno aren’t just dabbling in gothic aesthetics—they’re sculpting a new strain of nocturnal pop, one where metallic grit and shoegaze bliss coexist in the same glowing bloodstream.
Written, performed, produced, engineered, mixed, and mastered entirely by James, “My Bloody Kisses” doubles as a declaration of artistic autonomy. It’s lush, loud, atmospheric, and claustrophobic in all the right ways. More importantly, it positions Flowers for Juno as one of the most compelling DIY auteurs in modern dark rock.
If “Morgue Than Words” was the Halloween party, “My Bloody Kisses” is the comedown at sunrise—the moment when the eyeliner runs, the amps hum, and the emotional truth of the night finally takes shape.
A repeat listen isn’t recommended. It’s required.
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