Rotterdam's TEARDRINKER have released a video for "My Body is a Machine," the third single from their debut album I Hope This Hurts, which arrives this Friday, November 13, 2026, via Killjoy Sanctuary in conjunction with US label Fiadh Productions. The clip was directed by Chermetery, a friend of the band.
"My Body is a Machine" is not a song in the usual sense but a poem. When TEARDRINKER premiered I Hope This Hurts at Roadburn 2026, vocalist Kimothy Hoorweg broke up the weight of the set with a recital of it, and it became one of the most memorable moments of the festival. The video keeps the focus on that recital: a diary-like spell that takes the listener into Hoorweg's inner dialogue with trauma and depression.
Hoorweg explains that the poem was not planned. While writing the album, they were "unexpectedly visited by ghosts from my past in the form of nightmares, panic-episodes and physical trauma reactions." Researching centuries of systemic abuse and suppression brought back their own experiences with sexual violence and gender dysphoria, and the process at times was frightening enough that the band nearly put the whole piece on hold. "It ended with me writing the poem as a binding-spell to myself, my family/kin and the ghosts of my past," Hoorweg says. "I feel like it is both healing and tearing me apart, and it still makes me sob most times I listen to it or recite it."
The new video follows "Hereditary," which we covered last month and which the band call the centerpiece of the record. I Hope This Hurts began as a commission from Roadburn artistic director Walter Hoeijmakers after a secret TEARDRINKER set at the 2025 edition. It explores patriarchal violence and oppression from personal, historical and societal angles, tracing individual trauma, the witch trials and apartheid back to the same roots, and musically fuses black metal, screamo, post-hardcore and poetry. The band recorded the piece, plus one new song, in their own Rotterdam studio, with mixing and mastering by Role at Die Tonmeisterei. It comes out on LP, cassette and digital.
Formed in 2024 by members of VULVA, LIJKSCHOUWER and others, TEARDRINKER are Kimothy Hoorweg (vocals, cello), Matteo Cerroni (guitar), Rens de Boer (guitar), Noâh Elshout (bass) and Gijs van Teylingen (vocals, drums).
Tracklist:
- The Crow Knows
- The Original Sin
- Hereditary
- My Body is a Machine
- My Spirit Slips Away as My Body Dances Naked with the Devil
- Blessed is the Flame
- Choosing Kindness
Order & Stream "I Hope This Hurts": Bandcamp