Album Review: Haunted Hearts XIII - Metamorph

Metamorph (Margot Day) returns with the album Haunted Hearts XIII, with some impressive remixes to boot. There's something here for everyone, from dancefloor boppers, to darkwave swayers - even some melodic techno chill, this album offers a great selection.

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Haunted Hearts XIII is a collection of spells—conjured over the span of a year, now bound together in one body. Dropped in rhythm with moonlight and fire, each of these thirteen tracks followed the arc of the turning year. Now they move together—one body, one pulse, one spell. At the heart is "Haunted Hearts"-the unreleased title track and newest spell in the METAMORPH grimoire. It arrives cloaked in smoke and longing, a dark pop anthem of devotion, ache, and flame-fed desire. 

Surrounding the title track are the bangers that sparked the spell—"Cauldron Bubble Pop", "Rock the Shadows Roll the Moon", "Hiss Kiss", "Crown of Shattered Glass", and "Harlot" - songs that already haunt playlists and shimmer across late-night dance floors. Following them, the remixes slide in like perfume and smoke—twisted reflections conjured by Mechanical Vein, Paradox Obscur, IIOIOIOII, Allie Frost, Spankthenun, and METAMORPH’s own beloved dance mixes, long pulsing through the underworld. These tracks weren’t added—they were summoned. Chosen for how they breathe together. Most have already slipped into the world one by one, but here, as a single ritual, they move like a spell finally spoken in full. The new unreleased track: the Spankthenun Extended Mix of "Harlot"—arrives now like a last kiss you weren’t supposed to want.

“Erik Gustafson masterfully produces. My vocals and flute conjure the spell, and at the heart is the love Kurtis Knight and I share—bandmates and twin flames in the gothic fairytale of METAMORPH." — Margot Day

In the realm of Goth Pop, METAMORPH emerges as a mystical force. Starring native New Yorker, multi-range vocalist, flute player, and songwriter Margot Day, who was an integral part of the 80s NYC goth scene while fronting the legendary band The Plague with notable drummers Nick Ferrell (Spahn Ranch) and Damian (Misfits). Margot Day was bandmates with Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys in her first band, Slow Walk 13, and later with Joey Smur Kryzwonski (Motograter) in her project Sacred. By her side in METAMORPH, Kurtis Knight conjures luscious dance vibes, dark synth, and backup vocals. Together, they fuse tech and magic to deliver shows that are danceable, otherworldly, and intoxicating.

The Haunted Hearts XIII era began in Fall 2024, when METAMORPH launched a year-long series of singles, remixes, and videos leading up to the full album. Each drop in 2025 aligned with the witchy Sabbats, following the Wheel of the Year with a new single or dance mix every six weeks. This spellbinding cycle is culminating now with this release of Haunted Hearts XIII on September 19, 2025—a fierce, flirtatious, and otherworldly collection of goth-pop bangers, love spells, and shadow-drenched anthems from the edge of the veil.

The album from Distortion Productions features the brand-new incantation title track “Haunted Hearts,” and celebrates a year’s worth of irresistible releases. Starting with “Cauldron Bubble Pop” and “Rock the Shadows Roll the Moon” in late 2024 and building through 2025 with crowd favorites like “Hiss Kiss,” “Crown of Shattered Glass,” and the Harlot EP, Haunted Hearts XIII brings together the full force of METAMORPH’s wild, witchy, and wickedly catchy world. With this release, the spell is finally complete.

This new chapter follows the trail of the HEX album (3/8/24 via Distortion Productions) and Kiss of the Witch (2022), and dances alongside METAMORPH’s standalone track “Dance of a 1000 Miracles,” released 5/2/25 on Metropolis and Distortion Productions for the Electronic Saviors 7 compilation—already conjuring over 18,000 Spotify streams. Multiple albums, EPs, and singles appear throughout the Margot Day discography, most notably SACRED (1999) and The Plague’s Naraka (1986).

After a profound healing in 2016, Margot Day established METAMORPH. The METAMORPH Music Channel on YouTube chronicles this journey, captivating over 200,000 viewers with bewitching music videos.

Traveling with their tiny mascot Melody, METAMORPH has taken to stages across the US, Canada, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.

METAMORPH invites you to embrace the allure—and awaken your inner witch, vampire, superhero, or wizard.

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Review

'Rock the Shadows Roll the Moon' is a burst of energy filled guitar and drums, a touch of Egyptian magic with a wind instrument, and a chant worthy chorus, this feels like old school golden age Goth rock. Margot Day is clearly back with a vengeance here! The dance mix really does breathe a whole different life in to the track, the tempo and synths are much more stompy, and really do the vocals a lot of justice too. Nearer the end the vocals kinda remind me of the opening theme of Farscape.

'Haunted Hearts' brings even more of the great Goth sounds but more in the upbeat Darkwave sense. The lyrics are a constant stream of passionate poetry, only broken up by the same ancient sounding wind instrument from the previous track. You can tell there's a lot of meaning being throw out by the speedy verses like a story that wants to be told, but not reminisced on for long, a sort of healing track in that sense.

I kissed the ashes of your lips You tasted like heartache and bad decision Black smoke in my lungs

'Harlot' is a dancefloor filler straight off the bat, brilliant guitar, solid percussion, synths, and tempo. This track even throws in a few notes of traditional Chinese music to add extra flavour to the mix. This is a track to get you moving, no matter how traditional Goth the floor crowd is looking, this one will get them throwing limbs. The dance mix though! DAMN. It really adds edges in all the right places and speeds the track up fast enough to suit any dancefloor. There are actually 4 mixes of this on the album, the Allie Frost remix giving it more of a darkwave bass slap feel, ll0l0l0ll turns it more sweeping and cinematic with an edge of synthwave, and Spankthenun twist in to an old school EBM grinder. 'Hiss Hiss' takes us in a future/Industrial pop sort of direction with an edge of rock, a little like Grendel in a way. Edgy vocals, sweeping guitar, and thoroughly enjoyable synths make this one a bit of a headbanger. The lyrics speaks of love like venom in its damaging nature and also its ability to heal. It's rather poetic! 'Cauldron Bubble Pop' is FUN! It's just as the name suggests too - Industrial pop with a fantastic chorus that is catchy and easy to chant along to, all themed around witchy-ness. The flute at around 1:26 brings a moment of magical serenity amongst the constant dance beats, this is a fantastic track! Mechanical Vein remix this track in to a mid-tempo slice of cyber enjoyment. Throwing in some great touches to create more structured tempo and a filthy section to the last minute of the track that even reminds me a little of Organ Donors. Nice work there M.V! Paradox Obscur turn this track in to a melodic techno chillout which is a real nice addition of genre to all the others present here. 'Crown of Shattered Glass' is the last of the non-remix tracks. This throws in more kick ass guitars and some decent drums, though the song takes a real focus on the vocals here which seemed to be a challenge to keep up with the tempo of the backing music, but manage it Margot did.

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Conclusion

Haunted Hearts XIII is a bewitching cauldron of an album with multiple ingredients that add a touch of deeply enjoyable selection of genre mixing from one track to the next. The tracks are all short but sweet with fantastic beats, poetic lyrics, and Metamorph (Margot Day) is clearly very passionate about the music and energy that she puts out in to the world. Whether you like to dance, to chill, or to have silly fun, this album has it all covered.

Thank you!

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