Hand That Feeds

Throughout her music career, Halsey had expressed her admiration for Amy Lee, the lead vocalist of the rock band Evanescence.^[1] As part of the promotion campaign for her 2024 album The Great Impersonator, Halsey impersonated Lee as the artist who inspired the track "Lonely Is the Muse". She recreated the cover artwork of Evanescence's Fallen (2003), and called Lee the "OG dark rock queen"; it was received positively by the latter.^[2][3]

On May 6, 2025, Halsey and Lee announced the release of their collaboration, "Hand That Feeds", via their Instagram accounts; it was accompanied by a promotional picture of both wearing black outfits and holding hands.^[4] Halsey also published a snippet of the song and shared her excitement about its release, later naming it "one of the most surreal moments of [her] life".^[4][5] Both artists conceived the track for Ballerina, a 2025 action thriller film starring Ana de Armas and Keanu Reeves, which serves as a spin-off from the John Wick franchise.^[6]

"Hand That Feeds" was released on May 9, 2025, through Columbia Records.^[7] Halsey and Lee performed "Hand That Feeds" live for the first time on May 14, at the Los Angeles concert of the For My Last Trick: The Tour, Halsey's 2025 concert tour that includes Evanescence as the opening act at select dates.^[8] Hannah Lux Davis directed the music video for the single, which premiered on May 30.^[9][10] The video intersperses scenes from Ballerina with clips starring both singers. Halsey is seen dancing ballet and running in a street covered in blood, before being joined by Lee to sharpen knives. They are then tied to chairs and manage to escape. At the end of the video, they touch hands while trying to take an axe in the middle of a table, and stare to the camera.^[10]

Halsey, Lee, Michael Pollack, Gliff Clawson, and Jordan Fish wrote "Hand That Feeds", while the latter, former member of the rock band Bring Me the Horizon and previous collaborator of both singers, was in charge of its production.^[7][11]

Emily Zemler from Rolling Stone categorized "Hand That Feeds" as a "thundering" pop song,^[12] while Tom Breihan of Stereogum defined it as "arena-goth".^[13] Additionally, its sound was described by Rock Sound's Maddy Howell as "dramatic and atmospheric",^[14] and by Billboard's Hannah Dailey as "haunting and cinematic".^[15] It is structured as a ballad with an electronic production mainly composed of piano and drone;^[16][15] Dailey said that these instruments are "eerie" and "siren-like".^[15] Halsey and Lee sing one verse each and share the vocal performance in the chorus.^[12]