Here at the Send Me Your Ears studio, we’ve been taking a listen today to Norwegian band, Secret Treehouse’s latest single, Lovers In The Street.
Lovers In The Streets is a song about the feeling of rediscovered love in a relationship and the feeling of being free wandering the streets together. It fades in on picked electric guitar and moves quickly into a full band sound.
The instrumentation drops back to just bass and drums when the female vocal joins, and gradually, the guitar is added back in again as the song progresses.
We love the rise and fall in this track. There are sections without drums where an organ takes centre stage, and other spots where the guitars swirl around in your ears. Tying it all together is a repeated hook on the electric guitar.
The breakdown section of the organ and just vocals really gives Anja Bere a chance to shine. Her voice is characterful and shows some beautiful breathy moments and control as well as some gentle and fragile moments. The control in her head voice is superb. She reminded us just a touch of Lene Marlin or Deborah Harry.
After the breakdown section, the full band blasts back in with some great octave bass work and a powerful finish. Ending with the drums echoing around your ears, this is a song which takes the listener on a real journey.
Secret Treehouse are Anja Bere (vocals), Marius Mathisen (drums), Trond Espen Teigen Bjoland (keys), Tormod Smith Svanevik (bass), Sveinung Fossan Bukve (guitar/songwriter). Lovers In The Streets follows up on their debut EP, The Big Rewind.
From a production perspective, we felt that a boost around 55-60Hz would add some extra thump to the kick drum. The low end sounds a little heavy around 100-150Hz so a little cut here followed by a wide boost centred around 1.5kHz would balance the track out a little. The boost in the mids would also bring out certain aspects of the track, making the overall sound a little fuller.
For fans of anthemic alt rock with female vocals, you can’t go wrong with Secret Treehouse. Lovers In The Streets is a positive-sounding track with a vocalist you can’t help but imagine is smiling the whole time!