Canadian twin duo Softcult jumpstart their year with ‘Shortest Fuse,’ a colossal fusion of swooping melodic hooks, ethereal shoegaze guitars and heavy, grunge undertones; it’s the band’s ultimate criticism of capitalist society and the chokehold it has on low-income households.

Mercedes (she/her) and Phoenix (they/them) Arn-Horn dedicate their creative forces to storytelling with a purpose; across their young but lush discography, the two tackle issues most are afraid to even comment on. As a result, they’ve built this intricate, self-sustaining universe around their art that stands for something bigger than any one of us alone.

Of the inspiration behind the new track, Softcult comment: “Capitalism seems to be designed to keep underprivileged people toiling in a never ending cycle of debt and poverty where their labor is underpaid in order to profit their employers. The benefits of capitalism are rarely equally distributed, accruing wealth to a very small percentage of the population. Built on the notion of greed, benefitting only by paying workers less than what their labor is worth, it’s difficult to not become disenfranchised with capitalism when you exist in this reality and see no end in sight. We can’t become complicit in a system that is designed to keep us down.”