“Blood in The Grass” by Sour Widows

Sour Widows photo credit: Jaxon Whittington

There’s a specific kind of ache that comes from loving people you know you’ll eventually lose, and “Blood in the Grass,” the new single from Bay Area duo Sour Widows, sits right inside that feeling without flinching from it.

The track is the lead single from Sigil, the band’s sophomore album due October 23 via Julia’s War Recordings, and it arrives as one of the most striking songs Maia Sinaiko and Susanna Thomson have released yet. Written by Thomson for Babehoven’s Maya Bon, the song is ultimately a tribute to friendship — one built on the idea that pain shared with someone you love while you’re both alive is a kind of gift, something that becomes impossible once either of you is gone. Thomson has said the song’s grounding in nature is intentional, since vulnerability is something every living thing shares from the moment it’s born.

Musically, “Blood in the Grass” carries the qualities that have drawn comparisons to Adrianne Lenker and Big Thief — interlaced guitar lines, close vocal harmonies, and a patient build that knows exactly when to let go. It’s a sound the band has been sharpening for years, and here it feels fully realized: intimate at first, then swelling into something bigger without ever losing its tenderness. The accompanying video, directed by Sinaiko and Thomson themselves, matches that same unguarded quality.

The single sets the tone for Sigil as a whole, an album Sour Widows have described as one where disaster keeps giving way to new beginnings, where grief and hope end up tangled in the same breath. Coming off a run of dates that took them from opening for Alex G in Europe to headlining Midwest shows in blistering summer heat, the band sounds like a group that’s figured out something about endurance — both onstage and off.

Sour Widows head out on tour this fall with Squirrel Flower, and if “Blood in the Grass” is any indication, Sigil is going to be one of the year’s most quietly devastating records.

Sour Widows 2026 Tour Dates:

October 23 – St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway

October 24 – Lawrence, KS @ White Schoolhouse

October 25 – Fayetteville, AR @ George’s Majestic Lounge

October 27 – Dallas, TX @ Ruins

October 28 – San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger

October 29 – Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall

October 30 – Austin, TX @ 29th St Ballroom

November 1 – Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar

November 3 – Los Angeles, CA @ Sid The Cat Auditorium

November 4 – Ojai, CA @ Ojai Deer Lodge

November 5 – San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel