THE BACKSTORY:
We’ve heard a lot about Rome’s musical talent over the past few weeks – those beautiful, uplifting images of Italian people singing on their balconies in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Long before lockdown, however, the Eternal City was already home to some exciting, life-affirming musical artists – one of the finest being indie five-piece Portnoy.
With a name inspired by a famous Philip Roth novel (1969’s Portnoy’s Complaint), Portnoy have been building a formidable reputation on the Italian music scene for a while now. Despite singing in their native tongue, the band’s overall sound probably owes more to the rain-soaked melancholy of Manchester music than it does to sunny Italian romance. The band’s frontman and principle songwriter, Marco Pittiruti, is a lifelong devotee of Manchester music, in particular The Smiths. Indeed, you can certainly hear the influence of Steven Patrick Morrissey in Mittiruti’s bittersweet delivery and poetic, cerebral lyrics, whilst his bandmates serve up an artful, anthemic mood-pop sound which brings to mind New Order and The Cure.
With their live plans currently halted due to COVID-19, the band have been keeping busy with online performances (check out their charming Instagram cover of Shout Out Louds’ ‘Please Please Please’) and releasing a terrific new single, ‘Serendipita’. Portnoy are building a fearsome Roman musical empire – and nothing, not even global pandemics, can halt their progress.
KEY TRACK: The band’s latest single ‘Serendipita’. Don’t worry: you don’t need to be a fluent Italian speaker to appreciate this intelligent, emotionally-charged slice of indie-pop.
FOR FANS OF: The Killers, Whitney, Shout Out Louds.
