Kevin Bronson on April 15th, 2020

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Opus Vitae’s deceptively breezy new single “Carry the Weight” has its roots in songwriter Banah Winn’s abhorrence with “self-inflation selfie culture” and the recent political climate, not to mention how that pent-up anger can seep into relationships.

It’s a slow-building track that coils like a slowly clenched fist, ending with a bristling guitar solo. The collision of styles (from something out of the AOR ’70s/’80s to full-on rocker), as well as messages, make the song tough to parse.

“Carry the Weight,” Winn says, began in the early months of our political maelstrom as a vehicle for “how fired up and angry I was feeling at that time. I remember a number of my favorite indie bands releasing these super-mellow, un-fiery records and thinking to myself ‘Aren’t you all mad right now?’”

As he spent time with the song, Winn saw it through the prism of a disintegrating relationship. “Love isn’t perfect,” he sings, but what is? “Our relationships and lives are a mirror for us and sometimes we might end up in situations where we just want to burn it down to see what that might feel like,” he says. “It’s quite amazing how messy the process of figuring out what we actually want and need in life can be, and how out of touch we are with ourselves in general. How these different characters and parts of us (often in conflict with each other) will come out when faced with having what we thought we once truly wanted. Love isn’t perfect, and neither is life, and that’s the real fairy tale.”

The single is part of larger release that Opus Vitae has planned for later in the year.

||| Stream: “Carry the Weight”

||| Previously: “Chasing Ducks”