"Can You Feel My Heart" was one of the first Bring Me the Horizon songs written with keyboardist Jordan Fish, prior to his official addition to the band in 2013. Speaking to Sugarscape.com, bassist Matt Kean recalled that "When we were writing this song it was the first time we kinda realised that Jordan... was having a big impact on the writing", suggesting that it influenced the band's change in direction on the rest of Sempiternal. Vocalist Oliver Sykes confirmed this in a track-by-track feature with Metal Hammer, proclaiming that "This was the turning point; it was the first one that Jordan really got his teeth into, and obviously you can hear that because it’s very heavy on the electronica". The song's lyrics were written by Sykes, who has explained that it is "all about admittance, admitting you have a problem, and admitting something's wrong". Writing for Music Feeds, Mike Hohnen described "Can You Feel My Heart" as a track which combines elements of electronic and hard rock.
Promotion and release
The song was released in October 2013 as the fourth and final single from Sempiternal, backed with remixes of the song by Enter Shikari and electronic producer Jakwob. It was later included as the closing track on the band's first live video album, Live at Wembley, released in 2015, and is also featured on their second, 2016's Live at the Royal Albert Hall. In June 2014, "Can You Feel My Heart" was featured on the soundtrack of the video gameEA Sports UFC.
Music video
The music video for "Can You Feel My Heart", directed by Richard Sidwell and Alistair Legrand, was filmed in Los Angeles, California and released on 16 August 2013. The Guardian, who premiered the video, described it as "suitably ostentatious" for the song, outlining that it "follows a distressed looking man who is chased by evil beings wearing plague doctor masks". Noisecreep's Amy Sciaretto added that the masked people " and then an exploratory procedure on an unsuspecting young gentleman who bleeds thick, black blood", extracting something from his stomach. In a feature published in April 2015, Kerrang! ranked it the fifth best Bring Me the Horizon music video.
Critical reception
Multiple critics praised "Can You Feel My Heart" as a good illustration of the album, in particular the presence of electronic elements driven by the addition of keyboardist Jordan Fish to the band. Dean Brown of PopMatters explained that "Where the swathes of artificial electronica on There Is a Hell... sounded disengaged from the music, Jordan Fish's contributions here are seamlessly incorporated and audible from the bright beginnings of opener "Can You Feel My Heart"". BBC Music's Mike Diver noted that the track, alongside earlier single "Sleepwalking", "present new, synthetic textures to the forefront of the BMTH mix". Other reviews published by AllMusic, Alternative Press and Exclaim! identified the Sempiternal opener as a highlight of the album. The Guardian writer Dom Lawson was less positive, criticising the song's "dubstep swagger and overwrought synths". "Can You Feel My Heart" has also been included in several commentators' lists of the best Bring Me the Horizon songs – Alternative Press included it at number two on their list in May 2015, Loudwire ranked it at number six in May 2014, and AXS named it the seventh best in May 2015. Metal Hammer writer Luke Morton ranked it the fifth best song by the band, highlighting it as "the point the metal game changed" due to its use of electronics, which he claimed was "the finest use of electronics ever in a BMTH song".
Commercial performance
"Can You Feel My Heart" debuted on the UK Rock & MetalSingles Chart at number 26 on 7 April 2013, following the release of Sempiternal. It later reached its peak position in the top five of the chart on 20 October, after it was released as the album's fourth and final single, and spent a total of 12 weeks in the top 40. In the United States, the single reached number 26 on the BillboardMainstream Rock chart and number 39 on the Hot Rock Songs chart.
