Vlad In Tears have released "The Last To Love Me" from Undead, a double album Metalville put out on 4 December.
A double album is the decision worth noting. Gothic metal is a genre where the records are usually tight and the mood does the work, and forty minutes of it is already a lot to ask of a listener. Twice that is a band betting they have the material and the audience for it.
The song itself they are careful to frame. "This one isn't a love song," they say. "It's what's left after love is gone." That is the register they have worked in since the beginning, and the Italian brothers at the centre of the band have never pretended otherwise.
Metalville have had them for several records now. December puts the album at the end of a year in which the band toured more than they released.