“Empty Rooms,” the new collaborative single between Ohio rock band Goodmorning Valentine and singer-songwriter Jessica Lea Mayfield radiates heartbroken beauty. The tension between the gently plucked guitar line and powerful acoustic bass notes provides a bed atop which Joseph Allen Beltram (GMV) and Mayfield’s delicately placed harmonies lay. The space in the song mirrors the empty rooms the duo sing of, creating a funhouse mirror in which the song itself dictates the listener’s environment.

Though it moves at a slow-burning pace, “Empty Rooms,” which features John Kokoczka on bass, doesn’t waste a single moment. Beltram sings of receiving tepid responses while on the road, demoralizing considering it’s “all he’s got.“ There are drink tickets and scares of going crazy, prayers that the engine will start up again on the way to the next town. It’s a song on the circuitousness of life on the road for a touring musician, and by song’s end Beltram and the “you“ he sings to eventually wind up exactly where they began. There’s a Sisyphean feeling of defeat, sure, but the song aches with such existential and potent charm that starting again at the bottom of the mountain isn’t such a daunting task. After all, what else is there?