BURDEN OF EXCESS
BURDEN OF EXCESS
“Your album is great! I listened to it about 4 times on my last day of biking the Great Divide. It was exactly what I needed: a soulful blend of love, erotica, and some reality. The sax is an excellent spice to your songs; the cayenne in the hot chocolate. ”
Follow on Bandcamp to get notified as new tracks and updated mixes are added. Burden of Excess is a living album—new versions, mixes, and songs appear here as they’re finished.
Burden of Excess is an ever-evolving collection of songs written, produced, and performed by Polybanderous (Bradford King). It’s part album, part ongoing experiment — a living, breathing project that grows and changes as new tracks emerge and old ones get refined.
Born out of the chaos of juggling multiple bands and too many side gigs, this project reflects what it means to create in motion: music that evolves the same way people do. Each track is another snapshot of that process — imperfect, unpredictable, and hopelessly independent.
Updated songs, new artwork, and fresh mixes will appear here over time. Think of it less as a finished album and more as an open sketchbook — one that somehow sounds like a full band running on stubborn skepticism and a true burden of excess.
Track status guide
🔓 Out on Bandcamp — finished (for now)
🧪 Pre-Release — still in progress
PARADISE LOST
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Written for the Bushwick Book Club’s Jurassic Park event, this song reimagines Michael Crichton’s cautionary tale with an emphasis on the techno-capitalism angle of the book — where “progress” is just curiosity weaponized for profit. It’s about the human instinct to own, replicate, and control what should remain wild — and the inevitable collapse that follows when creation becomes a commodity. Like much of Burden of Excess, it’s less a retelling than a reflection: a warning about the myths we build around innovation, and how easily our better intentions evolve into extinction events.
HALLELUJAH
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A song about inherited faith, moral authority, and the quiet violence of obedience.
If this song connects, don’t let it end here.
I release music slowly and directly — no feeds, no algorithms, just songs when they’re ready.
“Hallelujah” is a song about inherited faith and the quiet violence of conformity — how guilt, fear, and tradition get repackaged as salvation. It questions the price of obedience in systems that claim moral authority while quietly profiting from submission.
Written, performed, and produced by Polybanderous, the song lives in the space between belief and betrayal — part lament, part refusal. It’s less a sermon than a reckoning, sung from inside doubt rather than certainty.
This version features a guest performance from Andreas Laursen of Seattle blues band Fast Nasties. His guitar threads through the track like a second voice — bending, breaking, and coloring the song’s unrest. The solo doesn’t decorate the mix; it sharpens the tension, widening the emotional frame where devotion, doubt, and defiance all compete for the same breath.
TROUBLE
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Trouble is a self-reflective piece about the psychological weight of religious indoctrination — and what it takes to unlearn it. It’s a song about the ongoing struggle between doubt and ego — asking questions into the void and hoping for clarity. Like the rest of Burden of Excess, it was written, performed, and produced by Polybanderous — recorded at Earwig Studio with Don Farwell. This one’s for the disillusioned child still staring back in the mirror.
WONDERING
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Wondering dives into the complicated aftermath of love and desire. About a year after a slow, painful breakup during the COVID years, I found myself in a forbidden and intensely passionate relationship — with someone I never thought I would. This song explores the questions, doubts, and curiosity that come with crossing societal and conventional boundaries, and reflects on where a relationship like this might lead. Four years later, I’m still wondering — about love, life, and how it’s possible I’m not dead yet?!
HUNTED
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Hunted dives into the intoxicating game of desire and the subtle dance of power in modern relationships. With sharp, sensual imagery and playful yet dark humor, the song explores the push-and-pull of attraction, consent, and pursuit — questioning why we chase, why we flee, and why we sometimes lie to keep the game alive. Equal parts confession and performance, Hunted captures the thrill, tension, and complexity of intimacy through vivid lyrics and hypnotic rhythm.
GONE
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“I think ive listened to Gone about a hundred times just on repeat... that line I’m just a jukebox for familiarity... i dont know why, but it stopped me dead in my tracks. ”
Gone is a smoky, narrative-driven track inspired by fleeting connections and the bittersweet pull of nostalgia. Written in July 2024 as a nod to Morphine, it tells a story of chance encounters, missed opportunities, and the tension between youthful curiosity and grown-up hesitation. The closing sax solo includes a subtle homage to Dana Colley’s iconic work on Head With Wings, weaving musical homage into a tale of whiskey, wine, and the moments that slip through your fingers. It’s a song about choosing your own path, embracing originality, and getting lost in the music of the moment.
I KNEW
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I Knew began in 2011 with a different melody and chord structure, but in 2016, a chance experiment with a looper at an airport gig revealed the layered, arpeggiated arrangement that now brings the lyrics to life. At first, the song feels like a heartfelt, intimate love story—full of playful encounters and tender memories—but by the final chorus, it unfolds into a lament, revealing the bittersweet truth beneath the romance. It’s a song about knowing love and loss, and the moments that linger long after.