“A glance, a first impression, an indelible mark made. And disappointment intrigued, one usually marches on the beat of impending doom-
Heart in hand, tearing at the sky
But those hand has the bleeding sand turned into a regrettable pulp?”
Somewhere between the tequila sunrise and the sodium glow of midnight, The Slashes find their rhythm. Starts With Tears opens like a confession whispered through a cracked mic: a guitar chiming with the fervid pulse of a city that never quite goes quiet. Esteban Rene’s voice has the weathered conviction of someone who’s seen neon light cut through fog and still believes in the next verse. Beto Bautista’s bass doesn’t just keep pace; it prowls, humming low like an idling engine in a border-town back alley, while Carlos Robles’s drums slap and shimmer with a kind of anxious grace, as if daring the night to end.
There’s a certain cinematic poise to the track; that cool restraint before something catches fire. The melody circles itself, deliberate and poised, until it feels like the room might tilt beneath it. When the chorus breaks, it’s a heartbeat too late, which makes it hit harder. The guitars ring with that peculiar mixture of romance and ruin that defined the first great wave of post-punk, but The Slashes inject a distinctly Southern Californian sensibility: warmth bleeding through the gray.
They call it border Goth, and the phrase feels right…not a gimmick, but a geography of feeling. Their music moves like heat across asphalt: restless, reflective, and streaked with memory. The production, guided by Alan Sanderson, Ben Moore, and Manny Nieto, has the crispness of glass and the bruised bloom of something analog. Each element breathes on its own, yet the track’s real power lies in its cohesion: that rare chemistry where restraint becomes revelation.
The Slashes have already staked their claim across stages from San Diego to New York, from The Observatory to The Music Box, sharing nights with The Chameleons and more. But Starts With Tears feels like a declaration, a reminder that post-punk can still shimmer in the desert heat, that the same kind of spirit found in classic bands like Joy Division and Killing Joke might yet dance beneath the palm trees.
Starts With Tears is elegiac, electric, full of hearts that break beautifully because they believe they still can.
Listen to Start With Tears below and order the single here.
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