Pierce the Veil turn up the heat on their latest single “Kiss Me Now,” an urgent ode to seizing the moment. The record arrives alongside a visualizer featuring two ice sculptures in the shape of two lovers locked in each other’s embrace. As the song progresses, with quickening guitar licks and thrumming bass lines, water begins to pool around the base of the figures as they melt away under scorching lamps.
“Nothing lasts forever/It’s not too late, it’s not too late/We belong together/’Cause life is full of pain/We’re upside down/Umbrellas catching all the rain,” frontman Vic Fuentes sings. “We’ll be young forever/But I don’t wanna watch time pass by to see/And if we’re falling through the trees/I’ll pick the thorns out you couldn’t reach/Along the way, it’s not too late.”
In a statement, Fuentes shared: “Lyrically, ‘Kiss Me Now’ is a love song to my wife, Danielle, exploring the concept of fear of time passing by too fast. It was inspired by a quote I find true as I move through life. ‘There will never be a perfect time for anything.’ If you spend your life waiting for the perfect moment to do something, it may never come. I tend to overthink things, and this song reminds me to give in more often.”
“Kiss Me Now” will appear on the deluxe edition of the band’s latest album, The Jaws of Life, out May 9. “I wrote ‘Kiss Me Now’ with my friend Josh Rheault, who used to be in a band called The Dear Hunter in a cabin in Julian, California,” Fuentes said. “I always loved that song, but we felt like The Jaws Of Life had too many slow songs, so it didn’t make it onto the original album.”
The extended version will also tack on Pierce the Veil’s rendition of Radiohead’s “Karma Police.” The release comes as they prepare to kick off their extensive “I Can’t Hear You” Tour, launching May 13. “The Jaws Of Life kicked off a new way of thinking for our band in the sense of trusting when things are not working for you,” Fuentes said. “The experience was so fulfilling and exciting that it made us reevaluate every part of our career — what we’re doing, how we’re doing it — and start chasing that feeling again by trying new things, pushing ourselves into uncomfortable territory, and seeing where it takes us.”
“Well-timed nostalgia for emo’s 2010s golden age is a key selling point here, but Pierce the Veil’s comeback album also admirably strives to make their sound resonate a little more widely than old fans might expect,” Rolling Stone noted in a review of The Jaws of Life.
