Label: Chess Club
Released: 8th September 2023
Coach Party are, frankly, killing it right now. Three awesome EPs in four years, and now a much-awaited debut album that not only lives up to the hype, it smashes it out of the park.
‘KILLJOY’ pulls no punches. The wonderfully bleak opener ‘What’s The Point In Life’ sees Coach Party set their stall out early, letting you know exactly what you’re getting yourself in for a tongue-in-cheek, brutally honest assessment of modern life layered over a sunny shoegaze backdrop.
Given the band has basically lived on the road for the past two years, this album has clearly been made with live shows in mind. The one-and-a-half minutes of punky thrash in ‘Parasite’, brooding feminist anger in ‘Micro Aggression’, and catchy sing-along chorus in ‘Hi Baby’, are all designed to drag you into the mosh pit and have you scream every word.
The record’s spiky lyricism makes ‘KILLJOY’ feel like a walking tour of small-town living, encompassing all the trials and tribulations that feel so important when you’re in the heart of it. From the descending spiral of ‘Be That Girl’ through to the usually unspoken jealousy of your friends doing well in ‘All Of My Friends’, the quartet manage to capture the mental toll it takes to live in your hometown in your twenties.
It’s very rare that a band as widely acclaimed as Coach Party meet expectations with a debut album. It’s even more rare when they take that expectation, rip it up, and set the bar even higher.
Watch out, world; Coach Party are coming, and they’re set for total domination.
