It’s always nice here at Start-track when we witness the birth of a brand new musical incarnation. After stints in bands such as sittingthesummerout and I Like Allie, Italian Luca Della Foglia has recently gone solo, with his new alt-rock/indie project Secret Choir.
So, with bated breath, I pressed play on Secret Choir’s debut single, ‘dead plants’.
The track starts simple – rhythm guitar and a vocal. There’s a 90’s punk swagger in the vocal that feels pleasingly retro.
When the drums and guitars drop, it’s grungy and raw – but not over the top – there is still a polish and a sheen to the sound.
Then there’s the guitar hook – it has just the right amount of distortion and bite to tease the most out of that riff. Everything else revolves around it – and it’s a good job too, because it’s a fantastically addictive melody.
Luca says ‘dead plants’ is for anyone who’s ever kept pouring energy into something that was already over.
“every morning, when I wake up
I carefully drench my dead plants,
with the purest water
when i go to sleep, I take them with me
the roots choke me tightly, as I grasp for air”
I loved the simplicity of ‘dead plants’. An earworm melody, lyrics that are fairly sparse (but direct), and a run time of barely over 2 minutes and 30 seconds. It knows exactly what it needs to do, and wastes zero time doing it.
‘dead plants’ is a killer debut. Secret Choir won’t be a secret for very long!
Written by Grubby
