Tag: Single Review: How Life Goes

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the last 6-8 months starting from the last few months of 2016, you’ve likely come across a handful of posts featuring Gothic Tropic, the solo recording project of Los Angeles, CA-based guitarist and vocalist Cecilia Della Peruti, who’s arguably best known as a touring and session guitarist for Charli XCX and BØRNS; however, with the release of “Stronger,” Peruti quickly established herself for crafting New Wave/post-punk inspired guitar pop with an infectious hook that sounded as though it drew from Go-Gos, The B52s and Too True-era Dum Dum Girls while her second single “How Life Goes” was a lush and atmospheric track with an anthemic hook.

“Your Soul,” Peruti’s fourth and latest Gothic Tropic single will also appear on her forthcoming effort Fast or Feast, which is slated for a May 19, 2017 release through Old Flame Records, and much like its preceding singles, it reveals an ambitious singer/songwriter, who has an innate ability to craft a sharp and rousing hook paired with punchy guitar chords, swirling synths and a propulsive rhythm section within a swooning and urgent song focusing on a fiery and passionate yet unrequited love between potential soulmates.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past few months, you might recall coming across “Stronger,” the first single from  Los Angeles, CA-based guitarist and vocalist Cecilia Della Peruti’s solo project, Gothic Tropic. And although she’s perhaps best known as a touring and session guitarist for the likes of renowned pop acts such as Charli XCX and BØRNS, Peruti’s last project possesses a New Wave-leaning sound. While “Stronger” sounded as though it owed a debt to the Go-Gos The B52s and others, her latest single “How Life Goes” is an atmospheric, song in which lush and plaintive harmonies are paired with shimmering guitar chords played through reverb and delay pedal, a propulsive and driving rhythm section, gently buzzing synths and a bluesy guitar solo in a song that sounds and feels as though it simultaneously drew from Phil Spector’s famed “Wall of Sound,” 80s New Wave, shoegaze and power pop – thanks to an anthemic hook. Much like the sources which inspired it, the song focuses on heartbreak — in this particular instance, the song’s narrator is begging for forgiveness and understanding while simultaneously, telling her significant other that  she’s getting a bit of a bad rap in this relationship. And in many ways, it captures the ambivalence that romantic relationships can inspire, especially if they went bad quickly.