Secret Social Club’s new single “Gravity”

Visually speaking, the comic-inspired debut video from rockers Secret Social Club is anything but unstimulating, blending live action visuals with an animated conceptualism that matches up quite well with the alternative style of the music at hand, but make no mistake about it – the real star of this work of art is its soundtrack. Undeniably one of the slicker rookie offerings out of the underground indie rock circuit this spring, “Gravity” is a juggernaut of a single sporting both the edginess of classic punk and the streamlined compositional structure of contemporary pop, and it’s rightly making some big waves in all the right circles this April.

URL: https://www.secretsocialclub.online/

The guitars here are surreally metallic, especially for the way that the song was mastered, but I would stop short of describing them as overindulgent in any capacity. There’s an equilibrium between the wallop presented by the strings and that of the percussion and vocal in “Gravity” that isn’t so easy to come by on the FM dial nowadays, and where some critics might view this as a bit odd for a band that can rock as heavy as these guys so clearly can, I think it’s one of the main reasons why they’re translating as uniquely with audiences as they are.

Though the bass part towards the chorus in this song is a little louder than it actually needed to be, the formula that Secret Social Club were operating with here definitely makes some sense when you look at it from a pop perspective (rather than through the lens of a traditional rock n’ roll composition). By kicking up the bassline’s presence when we would seemingly need its adrenaline the least, the band puts all the more emphasis on the groove in “Gravity,” making this single as thoroughly danceable as it is addictively head-banging.

For this being a rookie release, the production quality that both the music video and the song itself enjoy is nothing short of top shelf, but I don’t think this alludes to some hidden desire to break the mainstream right out of the gate. You can tell that Secret Social Club care about detail just by looking at the design of this track – and the visuals that it’s joined with in the video – and this alone sets the group apart from the droves of indie rockers who are simply looking to score some chart-toppers before 2020 turns into 2021.

I just heard about Secret Social Club for the first time this week, but I’m very interested in checking out more of their music after getting into the riffs offered up in “Gravity.” “Gravity” isn’t the most experimental rock song you’re going to hear in the month of April, and, more likely than not, it won’t be the only underground release worth writing home about that turns up this spring, but as far as debut efforts go, I think this is easily one of the best you’re going to get ahold of before season’s end. Simply put, Secret Social Club are a muscular group of players, and this initial taste of their skillset is certainly enough to bring me back for more in the future.

Mindy McCall