American Metal powerhouse Bad Omens has launched its latest era with ‘Specter’, a haunting ode to love, loss, and outliving those that one once held dear. Released on 8 August 2025 via Sumerian Records, the song comes after the band wrapped a string of high-profile festival appearances, the likes of which included Sonic Temple, Welcome to Rockville, and Summerfest, on its “goodbye, friend” tour circuit.

Bad Omens started teasing the new track barely two days before it dropped with a series of three cryptic videos. The clips starred Ryan Hurst (Sons of Anarchy, The Walking Dead), who portrayed, seemingly, a law enforcement agent tasked with interviewing a child in a ghost costume.

The music video for ‘Specter’, which also arrived on 8 August, then shows the same child traversing a surreal liminal space with a mysterious shadowy figure. That journey is interpolated with footage of the band performing the song in an empty room, as well as post-disaster scenes of giants, monsters, and an adult donning the same ghost costume as the child did in the teasers.

‘Specter’ opens with an atmospheric yet uneasy piano riff as Bad Omens frontman Noah Sebastian belts out the statement that sets a sombre tone for the rest of the track: “Oh I can’t leave, but I can’t be in this place.”

This establishes an uncomfortable feeling of not being here nor there — a sense of displacement meant to put listeners in the state of limbo that the persona experiences throughout as they are stuck in trauma, haunted by past events.

As the song progresses, the theme of grief and solitude becomes apparent. Lines such as “Years of living with a cold and empty space / And it haunts me every time I think I’m safe” evoke the void that a person leaves behind in their loved ones’ lives after death. They further emphasise the idea of lingering ghosts and haunting spectres that come out to play when one is left alone with an idle mind.

Of course, the presence of grief comes with the implication that, in its place, there once was love. ‘Specter’ repeatedly asks its listeners in the chorus, “Do you feel love?”, while immediately juxtaposing it with the fact that the persona does not. This draws focus to the emptiness that loss brings once the love has gone and when one has “no one to hold”.

At the second verse, drummer Nick Folio and bassist Nicolas Ruffilo come into the soundscape. Alongside the introduction of synths, these elements serve to build the track’s momentum — from a car cruising along a road, the instrumentals now conjure the feeling of the vehicle gaining speed as it approaches a yet unseen destination.

This imagery is corroborated by the persona reckoning, “This must all be just an accident at most”, appearing to downplay or even deny the massive loss they have suffered. But they later come to realise that what transpired fundamentally altered who they are as a person, turning them into merely a ghost of what they used to be — “Like a specter in your headlights on the road.”

That inescapable eventuality then mounts when the guitars, helmed by Joakim “Jolly” Karlsson, crash in as the chorus returns — transforming the track into a visceral dirge.

Upon the bridge’s approach, everything goes silent once more, leaving only the piano motif from before as Sebastian’s devastating vocals belt out a confession: “Something you’re missing made you who you were / ‘Cause I’ve kept my distance, it just made it worse / But I’ve learned to live with the way that it hurts.”

The instrumentals build once again as an almost-Phil Collins-esque drum segment joins in, a surprising reference point that shows how far the Metalcore outfit is reaching outside traditional genre boundaries. Sebastian’s signature distorted scream of the final word follows and rips the tension apart while the outro of the song washes over the listener like a tidal wave, before once again questioning: “Do you feel love? / I know I don’t / With no one to hold / Do you feel love, love, love?”

What is especially interesting is the instrumentals of the outro, which sounds, if not the same, extremely similar to that of a previous Bad Omens song, ‘ANYTHING > HUMAN’ from CONCRETE JUNGLE [THE OST] (2024), the companion EP to the band’s iconic album THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND (2022). This hence connects ‘Specter’ to the 2024 track, signifying a continuation, or at least a relation, to the world the band has built over the past few years.

Indeed, there does appear to be some thematic links between both tracks. While ‘ANYTHING > HUMAN’ looks at the flawed nature of humans while living in a world that demands perfection — something more than being human — ‘Specter’ tackles the idea of someone who no longer feels human after the loss they have gone through.

From the mellow opening to the build-up and final release of energy, ‘Specter’ does a good job at introducing listeners to the new era Bad Omens is ushering in. While some might have preferred a heavier, more intense number for a new release, this track instead displays the versatility and range the band is capable of, which bodes well for the rest of the album or project it eventually leads up to.

In a climate where many heavy bands are chasing breakdown-laden singles, Bad Omens instead lead with a track that leans into vulnerability and atmosphere. Fans and new listeners alike can therefore expect a range of different sounds and styles coming up, harnessing the same experimental spirit that brought acclaim to Bad Omens’ THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND album in the first place.

At the end of the day, ‘Specter’ is a raw investigation of love and loss, and the lingering effects that grief can bring to one’s life. While love may be the Death of Peace of Mind, losing that love is how Spectres are created.

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Author’s Note: This article is in memory of Reshma Grace — a fighter, a friend, and a fervent supporter of Singapore’s music community. I did it, Resh. Thank you for pushing me to start my own music publication, although I’m sorry I took this long. Gigs are not the same without you, but your positivity and love for music live on.