All My Plants Are Dead
Crush
Over many decades Manchester has released on the world some of the most popular and influential bands on the UK music scene. With bands such as Oasis, The Smiths, and The Stone Roses, just to name a few, Manchester’s successes have played a huge role in influencing many unsigned and independent artists who call the City their home. So on the 1st May 2020 a young band have taken the magic of Manchester and weaved it into their next single in hopes of adding their name to the impressive list, That band, is Crush.
‘All My Plants Are Dead’ is the latest single from this aspiring Pop-Rock band. It is the sister single to their previous release Glue. Like Glue, All My Plants Are Dead carries a bittersweet concept to the lyrics while carrying them along with a very 80’s inspired Alt-Pop vibe. While Glue had its main focus on the views of relationships, All My Plants Are Dead takes a wider view of our relationships with day to day life and the trappings and pitfalls of the current social world. This song could not have landed at a better time as a large portion of the world can relate to this message as we all question the state of our own societies.
‘Really just a message of looking after and understanding each other a bit better, and a critique of how modern living at times can make this an unattractive and hard to achieve concept.’ Crush
Despite this gloomy thought the song does give hope to the message through its bright guitar and a slight use of a splash effect on the drums that bring both a polished and raw feel to the track as a whole. Another addition to their sound and the idea of walking the line between Alt Pop and Alt Rock is the addition of a spoken word sequence performed as part of the outro.
The sequence, inspired by the novel ‘Naked Lunch’ by William S Burroughs (which is a collection of stories that comment on society as seen through the eyes of an outsider), carries an emphasis through the use of distortion on singer Amber Warren’s vocals. This effect creates an introspective atmosphere, reinforcing the message of the song. Despite this however it has a slight draw back by making a few words within the monologue unclear. This by no means detracts from the track as a whole, in fact it displays the bands willingness to push the envelope on their creativity and so things can only keep getting better from here.
Crush also utilises other effects well on this track. The guitar, bass, and the drums, are each given their own unique feel and then pulled together with an untouched vocal line that is reminiscent of The Smiths or The Cure. One highlight of these contrasting effects is when towards the end of the track the guitar applies a slight distortion to the familiar opening riff, resulting in a feeling of finality to the music and its message as it fades down into silence.
All in all this track is once again proof that Manchester knows how to produce competent musicians and show no sign of slowing down. As the band was only formed back in 2018 it speaks volumes to their abilities to create a track of this quality early on. Hopefully with the right kind of encouragement, support, and guidance, Crush will grow to become a fixture of the UK music scene.
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