Office culture is not for everyone, that much is sure. With that in mind, New York dark rockers Vajra are artistically rallying against a soul-sucking 9-to-5 lifestyle through the new music video for their recent single “Truth Has Many Lies.”
The music video was produced, written and edited by the band, in collaboration with photographer-director Tas Limur (TOOL, Volto, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum). In it, vocalist Annamaria Pinna dispassionately goes about an early morning routine while getting ready for work. She then hits the subway, walks against the grain from the other zombified rat-racers, and ultimately finds herself both literally and figuratively chained to her office job like a cross between Jacob Marley and an imprisoned animal.
The singer explains that visuals were inspired by her own experiences at an office job, which led to a cathartic and necessary exodus from the position, international travel, and the writing of Vajra’s first album, 2012’s Pleroma.
“Lured by the prestige and high salary of a corporate job in the Big Apple, I took it, but almost immediately, I felt my insides were rotting,” she explains. “Lack of fresh air, and the daily hum-drum routine severely depressed me. I had to take some difficult looks in the mirror, gather up some courage, and do what I felt was right for me. I walked out, and I moved to India. There, I was forced to confront my assumptions about myself, the world around me, and to uncover my truth, reclaiming pieces of myself in foreign land.”
Scored by a mix of dark and juddy, Evanesence-esque melodies and Pinna’s hearty vibrato, “Truth Has Many Lies” was released to streamers via Thunder Cult Records earlier in the month. The single follows Vajra’s 2023 cover of Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield.”