Like many other songs by Breath & Blade, “My Love” is a song of heartbreak with a dark twist. In this debut track, singer Anne Emberline paints the image of herself lying in the arms of a dead lover waiting patiently for him to wake up. The song builds to a heavy chorus hook, with Emberline wailing “My love, my love, come back to me” over guitarist Aleks Amer’s downtuned riffs, and then closes with an abrupt break into chaotic droning noise – a symbol of the turmoil that often comes with finality.

“My Love” is a metaphor for loss – a song for the moments when you aren’t ready to move on, even if the person you love already has. It was mixed by Michael Kraushaar at Bully’s Recording Studio in New Westminster.

Vancouver’s Breath & Blade brings new life (and death) to the classic heartbreak pop song by reimagining romantic loss through the dark metaphor of murder. Musically, this concept-driven project thrives on curious combinations, mixing classically influenced piano and hooky pop melodies with heavy guitar riffs and abrasive noise, in a sound that calls to mind a mixture of Nine Inch Nails and Fiona Apple and draws from influences as divergent as Christina Aguilera and Converge.

The layers of Breath & Blade come from two multi-instrumentalist songwriters working together: Anne Emberline (Craters) on keys, vocals, and drum programming, and Aleks Amer (MAINLINE, RATHKELTAIR, Witch of the Waste) on guitar. Despite the dark nature of the project, both Anne and Aleks are surprisingly cheerful people – another curious combination. Put these two in a room together and you'll hear just as much laughter as you will screeching guitar wails and pained vocals about corpses. They met through Vancouver's heavy music scene and joined forces on the project when Anne mentioned in a friendly conversation, “Hey, I’m making creepy songs about murdering people. You in?”

Breath & Blade is releasing their first single on Valentine’s Day – “My Love”, a haunting ballad about lying in the arms of a dead lover, waiting patiently for him to wake up – and is planning a cross-Canada tour for late 2018.