Bad Omens and Poppy have unveiled the collaborative track “V.A.N” along with an accompanying music video.
The sci-fi concept song is centered around an AI entity voiced by Poppy, a guest befitting of song’s industrial metal sound. Her whispered vocals transform into aggro screams as the song builds in intensity, as metal instrumentation joins the electronic textures already in place.
“That’s a song that started just with the hook ‘Violence against nature,’ and then after saving the project with the acronym and seeing it we realized it could be fun to think of ‘VAN’ as a name,” remarked Bad Omens singer Noah Sebastian in a press release. “Thus the rabbit hole of ideas began that led us to decide to write lyrics from the perspective of an artificial intelligence gone rogue.”
The track is a tie-in with Bad Omens’ Concrete Jungle comic book universe, with the AI entity V.A.N being an actual character in the series. This is brought to life in 3D in the song’s accompanying music video — which functions as a short sci-fi flick — written by Sebastian, Poppy, and Garrett Nicholson, and directed by Nicholson and Poppy.
The release of “V.A.N” is also the first tease for Bad Omens’ upcoming album, Concrete Jungle OST, which will provide the soundtrack to the aforementioned comics. The band will be premiering the track live alongside Poppy on a string of European tour dates in January and February, and you can pick up tickets here.
Watch the video for “V.A.N” below. Stream or download the track here.