V.A.N (song)

"V.A.N" (an acronym for "Violence Against Nature") is a song by American band Bad Omens and American singer-songwriter Poppy. The song was released through Sumerian Records on January 25, 2024. It served as the lead single from the band's reissue album Concrete Jungle [The OST].

The song premiered on SiriusXM's Octane radio station hours before its official release.

Background
In September 2023, Poppy announced that she would be supporting Bad Omens across Europe for their Concrete Forever Tour, ahead of her own Zig Tour in support of her fifth album Zig (2023). In January 2024, Bad Omens deleted all of their Instagram posts and began posting video teasers that featured Poppy.

Composition
"V.A.N" is an industrial metal song that features lead vocals from Poppy only. The sci-fi-themed song includes inspiration from Bad Omens' comic book Concrete Jungle. It tells a story of an artificial intelligence entity that would destroy humanity.

Speaking about the song, Sebastian elaborated: "'That's a song that started just with the hook 'Violence against nature', and then after saving the project with the acronym and seeing it we realized it could be fun to think of 'VAN' as a name. Thus the rabbit hole of ideas began that led us to decide to write lyrics from the perspective of an artificial intelligence gone rogue.'"

Music video
The music video for "V.A.N" was released alongside the song, and was directed by Garrett Nicholson and Poppy. The visuals were inspired by the video game Portal, the film Ex Machina, and the TV show Stranger Things.

On March 29, 2024, an official live video was released, which features Poppy and Bad Omens performing the song in Europe.

Live performance
Bad Omens and Poppy debuted the song live in Berlin on January 27, 2024.