Lyric Noel Releases Single + Video 'Acid Bloom' Feat. Mixi Of Stitched Up Heart
The collaboration, released via Judge & Jury Records, was filmed on a science lab set in Texas.
Lyric Noel and Mixi Demner, the vocalist of Stitched Up Heart, have released a new single and music video titled ACID BLOOM through Judge and Jury Records. The track, which explores themes of betrayal, manipulation, and transformation through the metaphor of a scientific experiment gone wrong, grew out of a real friendship between the two artists that began when Noel attended a Stitched Up Heart show. Demner later introduced Noel to Judge and Jury Records. The accompanying video, directed by Michael Levine with Maxton Donnell serving as creative lead, is set in a science laboratory and follows a fictional narrative in which Noel's character transforms into an uncontrollable organism after a lab accident.
Photo Credit: Michael Levine
'Flying out to Texas to work with Lyric Noel on 'Acid Bloom' was such a dream,' says Demner. 'The music video was insane, and the art department killed it with the whole science lab set. Everything about it was perfect. The whole team was amazing, but building a real friendship with Lyric made it extra special. I'm so honored I got to be part of such an incredible experience.'
Beneath that real-life friendship lies a much darker fictional story. 'Acid Bloom' explores what happens when pain becomes the force that changes you and survival requires becoming something entirely new. Told through the metaphor of a scientific experiment gone wrong, the song follows something beautiful emerging from something corrosive and destructive. The 'acid' represents the experiences, people, and circumstances that slowly erode a person's identity, while the 'bloom' symbolizes the stronger, stranger, and uncontrollable version of oneself born from surviving them.
Lyrically, 'Acid Bloom' is about reclaiming power after manipulation and betrayal. Rather than allowing those experiences to define the survivor, they become the catalyst for transformation. Sonically, that evolution unfolds through chaotic, cinematic production that builds from mounting tension into an explosive release, mirroring the moment an experiment can no longer be contained.
''Acid Bloom' is about what happens when the thing that promises to heal you is the very thing that's poisoning you,' explains Lyric. 'It's the moment survival turns into transformation, not because you wanted it to, but because you had no other choice. Sometimes growth isn't beautiful. Sometimes it burns.'
The accompanying music video, directed by Michael Levine, with Maxton Donnell serving as creative lead and Levine assisting in the creative development before taking the director's chair, expands the song's narrative into a disturbing cinematic world. Following a laboratory accident, scientist Lyric Noel transforms into Acid Bloom, an uncontrollable organism that binds her to a captured test subject portrayed by Demner. What begins as a tense captor and captive dynamic gradually develops into a disturbing symbiotic relationship. As both characters become physically and emotionally consumed by the organism's invasive growth, the video reveals a powerful metaphor for toxic codependency and the ways love, control, healing, and destruction can emerge from the same connection.
Lyric Noel is built around personifying Lyric Hollar's lived experience with different mental illnesses and emotional struggles. The project exists to say the things people are usually expected to carry quietly — the intrusive thoughts, the instability, the exhaustion of trying to appear okay. Lyric writes from inside that reality, not from metaphor or distance, turning pain into something raw, visible, and honest. The work does not soften or romanticize struggle, but it does make it beautiful in its truth, giving listeners language and reflection for experiences they already know but rarely hear spoken out loud.
As a band, Lyric Noel amplifies that voice with intention. Alongside guitarist, primary composer, and producer Russell Hollar, guitarist Robby Gray, and drummer Jerrin Castillo, the project blends heavy, atmospheric, and alternative elements into music and visuals that match the weight of Lyric's message. That honesty has connected with more than 900,000 people across social platforms and is now entering its next chapter through a new partnership with Judge and Jury Records.
ABOUT JUDGE & JURY
Judge & Jury is an artist/production team founded by multi-platinum record producer Howard Benson (My Chemical Romance, Skillet, Theory of a Deadman, Daughtry, Kelly Clarkson, Flyleaf, Halestorm, In Flames, etc.) and second to none active rock record holder Neil Sanderson (founder/songwriter/drummer of Three Days Grace). Howard and Neil started working together creatively when Howard produced One-X. He continued to work with the band and produced the albums Life Starts Now, Outsider, and EXPLOSIONS. With the combination of Howard's production and Neil's songwriting, they now have the most #1 songs at active rock radio in history. Still working with Three Days Grace, they also separately formed the production/artist/songwriting powerhouse known as Judge & Jury.
For more information, visit Lyric Noel on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Spotify, or visit Judge & Jury Records.
Photo Credit: Michael Levine
