Vandal Moon’s “The Way You Cry” Video Struggles With Unrequited Love

This Valentine’s Day, Vandal Moon offers us the most miserably wonderful gift: a new music video. “The Way You Cry” is the newest single from the California-based duo and is a song off their 2022 album, Queen of the Night. It is a track doused in melancholy synthpop—and one abundant in apologies. “Can you ever please forgive me?” asks Blake Voss, as he sings with a tinge of regret. “Remember how I used to be.” Perfect for all dark romantics, Voss notes: “I’ve always loved sad, sappy love songs sprinkled with dysfunction. They feel more realistic to me. Anyone who’s survived into adulthood knows we sometimes find ourselves in love with people for all the wrong reasons. And it can be more addictive than cigarettes.” Happy Valentine’s indeed.

Despite its eerily calm beginning, “The Way You Cry” erupts into a powerful chorus: “I can’t be yours and I’m sorry that I made you mine,” Voss apologizes. The heartbreak is palpable and reflects the Queen of the Night‘s overarching theme, which is about a young woman pushing through the world when it’s falling down around her.

To match the mood of the song, Voss handed the reins over to Moth Christansen, a young video director. (“I wanted a music video that was actually made by the generation living through it,” Voss notes.) The video, set in a graveyard abundant with rose petals, tells a story of tragic love. “I wanted this video to feel very real and potent,” says Voss. “And I wanted it to capture all the tragic beauty of a moment in time that you won’t ever get to live again. The heartache of passing time. Like the sadness of looking through old photographs.”

Watch the video below:

In ultimate goth fashion, the video includes fantasy elements alongside Victorian imagery and Japanese lure: “I really wanted to incorporate the Japanese concept of Hanahaki disease,” says Christansen. “Hanahaki is a fictional illness in which flowers begin to grow in one’s lungs, as a result of unrequited love. When affected by Hanahaki disease, the victim will cough up flower petals and, in its final stages, choke to death on them.” The devastation of heartbreak is enough to destroy a person—especially at a young age.

Christansen concludes: “Have you ever given someone your everything, when they could never truly be yours in the first place? It’s not uncommon, I’d argue that’s how love goes in most cases. It could almost be a cautionary tale. So, dear reader, if you fall, please don’t let the flowers consume you. No temporary lover is worth your life.”

Purchase Queen of the Night here.