EP Review: Coach Party - 'After Party'
Following 2020’s ‘Party Food’, Isle of White band Coach Party have released their second EP ‘After Party’.
Opening track ‘Can't Talk, Won't’ is a slacker’s confessional, rich with stark scenes of self-reflection - “I’m really tired I should do some work, I’m uninspired I can barely talk.” However, the punk attitude of the album ensures that even the lowest moments described feel refreshingly self-aware rather than self-piteous, demonstrated when lead vocalist Jessica Eastwood regales: “I ripped a hole in my favourite jeans. I started crying, I think this means something else is going on.” Though the themes explored across the six tracks are macabre, a defiant tone is immediately set as she repeatedly screams “don’t think I wanna die”.
The record is moody but triumphant and channels these dark thoughts into underdog anthems. With some traditional punk fixtures like angry guitars and occasionally shouted lyrics (the album cover clues you in with a Sex Pistols-esque pink and yellow pallette), even low ebb moments of emotional fatigue feel spirited. ‘Crying Makes Me Tired’, ‘Everybody Hates Me’, and the bashfully uncapitalised ‘i’m sad’ champion resilience in the face of life’s obstacles and a refusal to be hobbled by personal flaws.
It's hard not to find common ground with Coach Party at some point in each of these six tracks. Frank admissions of foibles and regrets abound and will pierce the emotional armour of even the most self-assured listeners. If the more extreme sentiments (“everybody hates me, I’m boring and unhappy” or “someone bury me I’m dead inside”) don’t feel familiar, there is always “all we do is stay indoors”.
‘After Party’ deviates from the three chord fury of it’s forebears in terms of musical complexity, as 8-bit style ‘chiptune’ synths interject and gentler counterpoint melodies are peppered throughout the record.
“Really Okay On My Own” deals with post-breakup blues as the singer flits between an idealistic vision of independence - “really okay on my own” - and a vulnerable admission that she fears solitude - “don’t wanna be alone”. The two outlooks lock horns as a rhyming couplet becomes a quickening call and response until eventually they are concurrent at the track’s crescendo. Distant voices whisper the latter like malevolent niggling doubts.
Released as a single back in February, ‘Everybody Hates Me'' is paradoxically fun and gritty. It’s lyrics read like an emo rock song on paper, but the track has a jaunty sing-a-long earworm quality. A microcosm of the album itself, the single feels primed to draw in listeners from a growing audience that is proud to engage with an uncomfortable but vital mental health discourse. It also has a really catchy hook, which doesn’t hurt.
Sweetheart begins as a tender, resigned end to the album, but inches towards righteous indignation as Eastwood sneers “after I pay my fucking rent.” The album then ends on a high with the group on top-form in a track that speaks to the benefits of being your own hypeman during moments of self-doubt - “I’m not cool enough for them, I’m cool enough for them.” In all, the album is a pleasing mixture of chaotic guitar rhythms, raw, tongue-in cheek verses which carry an infectious energy, and a pervading sense of refusal to be downtrodden by life’s merciless boots.
Words by Joe Buncle