Artist: Unify Separate
Title: Heart Aches
Genre: Electro Pop / Synth Pop
Release Date: 30th October 2026
Label: Self-released
Single Review
There are songs that hit you right in the heart before you even begin to understand why.
For the second time this year, I’m sitting here in front of my screen with a huge lump in my throat, not knowing what to write. How do I do justice to a song that is deeply personal? How do I find the right words for a musical legacy that processes individual experiences and grief while also conveying something much greater, something universal?
Perhaps I should start with what this song did to me when I first heard it. It was Monday lunchtime. I had taken the afternoon off because of a concert (what else?) and was just standing in my bathroom when I received Leo’s message: “Hi there! Here comes something for you.” The new album ‘The God Particle’ is due out on 6 November. I hadn’t expected another single in advance, so I was both surprised and absolutely delighted.
The title of the song: ‘Heart Aches’. Somehow, I think I sensed what the song was about, and my stomach tightened. Nevertheless, of course, I had to listen to it straight away. So, I pressed “Play” and heard Leo’s voice. Leo, not Andrew! The immediate effect of his voice - tears. I was overwhelmed by the intensity with which a wave of emotions washed over me, and I had to sit down for a moment. I hadn’t really taken in the lyrics yet. My thoughts and feelings had long since moved to a completely different level, filled with my own memories.
I thought of my dad, who died in October 2002, shortly after his 63rd birthday. I could see him sitting in the kitchen in my mind - a memory so painful, “like broken glass / cutting deep”. About two years earlier, we had received the diagnosis: ALS. On that afternoon, sometime in the summer of 2002, hardly anything remained of the man I had known all my life. And now here I was, 24 years later, and all the pain, all the helplessness I had felt that day had come rushing back. Like a punch straight to the gut.
Music can convey feelings before we are able to make sense of them in our minds. The emotional intensity of the vocals had reached me without me really taking in the words. I wrote to Leo: “Your dad? That’s why you had to sing that, didn’t you?”
Leo’s father passed away in March 2026. A man whom Leo himself describes as strong, creative, conscientious, quick-witted, skilful with his hands and the calmest person imaginable. “Since 2005, you had lived alone, after Mona (our vibrant, colourful mother) left us far too soon and completely unexpectedly. You never considered filling that void or even casting a glance at another woman. I know what you did first when you checked out: you reversed your metallic blue Cadillac out of the driveway to pick up Mum, who had been waiting for you by the side of the road. And then the two of you set off together towards the horizon. From the speakers... ‘Always on My Mind’.”
For a long time, there was just a single dove on Mona’s gravestone. Now there are two. And these doves also appear in the artwork for ‘Heart Aches’. A small detail that connects everything: the story behind the song, its lyrics and its music. What initially seems like a simple symbol becomes an image of a love that endures beyond death. Mona and Gidde are now resting together, and there seems to be something deeply comforting in that.
The lyrics of ‘Heart Aches’ describe neither the personal story of Gidde and Mona nor that of Gidde and Leo. They remain more open, describing on a much more universal level how love and loss remain inextricably linked. The person is gone, but the love does not end. “My heart aches … Because my heart is beating just for you.” These lines unfold within a grand, anthemic melody that gives space to a pain for which words are often not enough.
“Heart Aches” - two words that express an entire universe of pain, even before the music draws the listener into its sonic world. The abstract term “heartache”, which describes emotional suffering, becomes something physically tangible. The heart is not sad; the “heart aches”. The central feeling is named. No narrative distance. No introduction needed to explain the pain. The pain is there, immediate.
We can faintly hear the sounds of a ventilator and a heart monitor. They create a fragile, almost oppressive atmosphere and make the song feel immediately physical. Life becomes tangible as something precious and vulnerable. When the sounds return in the second chorus and, to me, the rhythm increasingly begins to resemble a heartbeat, the music seems almost to embody the lyrics: the heart aches, but it keeps beating.
“My heart aches / Every second I’m with you” - the person you love is no longer there, and yet they remain present in every thought and every memory. Love does not disappear with death. It remains, and that is precisely why it hurts. ‘Heart Aches’ tells of this inner struggle, describing how unspoken feelings leave their mark – “Every truth I hide / Leaves another scar on me”. You cannot defeat this pain – “A silent war within / That I can’t win”. But perhaps that is not really the point, either. Perhaps it is about learning to live with the pain.
Leo takes on the lead vocals, giving the song an immediate, personal intensity. Andrew remains very much in the background. It sounds as though he is supporting his friend without taking his voice away from him. Given the personal background, this musical division of roles moves me in a particularly profound way: Leo tells his story, and Andrew stands by his side. It almost feels like a musical embrace, as though Andrew was saying, you don’t have to carry the pain alone.
The synthesisers, the growing sound and the big choruses create an atmosphere that is painful and comforting at the same time. It reminds me a little of U2, and I recall that Bono, too, expressed his grief in a very personal song about his relationship with his father. Like ‘Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own’, ‘Heart Aches’ combines intimate vulnerability with a grand, anthemic soundscape. The music does not take the pain away; it carries it. Something powerful emerges from grief. The music conveys that you are allowed to be sad while also offering something to hold on to, something that supports you, sustains you and brings comfort.
UNIFY SEPARATE must surely have chosen the release date with great care. In many cultures, the period around All Saints’ Day is a time to remember those we have lost, a time when the dead feel particularly close to us. A time for everyone who knows that memories can bring both comfort and pain.
With ‘Heart Aches’, Leo Josefsson and Andrew Montgomery allow pain and love, helplessness and hope, absence and connection to coexist. The music does not simply tell the same story as the lyrics. It allows us to feel what words cannot express. It transforms a deeply personal story of grief into a universal message. A musical legacy that reminds us that someone can be missing from our lives and yet remain a part of them forever - always on our minds.
Awarding points has never felt more wrong to me than it does today. And yet, simply because of the way this song struck me and moved me so deeply the first time I heard it, I would give it 12 points if I could.
Line-up
Andrew Montgomery – Vocals
Leo Josefsson – Keyboards, Vocals
Live Dates
06.11.26 - Hägersten / Telefonfabriken (SE)
21.11.26 - Linköping / Palatset (SE)
27.11.26 - Leipzig / Darkflower (GE)
28.11.26 - Potsdam / Lindenpark (GE)
22.05.27 - Cologne / Club Volta (GE)
04.-06.06.27 - Busenwurth / Lucy-Fairs Garden (GE)
02.07.27 - Halle/Saale - Eastside Festival (GE)
Website
https://www.unifyseparate.com / https://www.facebook.com/usmusicspace
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 10
Sound: 10
Total: 10 / 10
