Audio By Carbonatix
Keep Westword Free
We’re aiming to raise $20,000 by April 26. Your support ensures Westword can continue watching out for you and our community. No paywall. Always accessible. Daily online and weekly in print.
On his latest release, Patrick Dethlefs seems to strip back the songwriting a bit from what we heard on 2012’s accomplished Fall & Rise. From the beginning, one of the virtues of Dethlefs’s songwriting has been a tastefully spare use of elements, and this remains at the core of the three tracks that make up While You’re Carrying the Weight (two appear on the seven-inch, and one is a bonus). “Help Me See” is a delicately evocative exploration that attempts to understand the roots of dissolution in a failed relationship, and with cello swells accenting the edges of vocal phrases, the title track is imbued with a spirit of nostalgia and hope for the immediate future. “Blue Eyes,” meanwhile, is more upbeat, but it, too, contains themes of reflection and pondering what could be.
