Enough cathartic rage to relieve you of all your inner demons. Photo: Harvey Gosling
Akin to fellow Isle of Wight-ers Wet Leg, Coach Party have crammed years of success into a very tight timescale; and they’re here to show what they’ve learnt.
Coach Party returned to Portsmouth for (essentially) their homecoming gig last month, bookending a frantic period for them. They’ve supported rock royalty Queens of the Stone Age, played Glastonbury and garnered unanimous critical praise, squeezing years of growth into a tight timescale.
Their debut record "KILLJOY", released last month, is a homage to 90s alt-rock that grapples with existential frustrations and disillusionments about identity.
Coach Party aren’t reinventing the indie-rock wheel, but they sure are having fun thrashing it about. Their show encourages you to wallow in self-loathing and cynicism, leaving your demons expelled by the finale.
Their set opened with ‘Micro-Aggression’, one of many tracks that hold sleazy male archetypes at gunpoint, screaming them down and smacking them with a tempo-bending breakdown. It’s surely the unofficial sequel to Wolf Alice’s "Smile".
Frontwoman Jess Eastwood harbours a great confidence onstage; reserved enough to make the screeching look effortless but not enough to appear apathetic.
When she screams “Wanna hurt you bad / Just like you hurt me” in ‘FLAG (Feel Like a Girl)’, it’s packed full of conviction.
Nihilism is in Coach Party’s DNA. For instance, album opener ‘What’s the Point in Life’ is so full of exhilaration, it’s all too easy to let that very question brush past you.
Drummer Guy Page was an unsung hero at the back. His arms shot between every hit as if he were possessed, driving the band's urgency.
Guitarists Joe Perry and Steph Norris fit perfectly, coupling interesting lead guitar melodies with a blistering rhythm section on tracks like ‘Breakdown’.
The show became a celebration of the band’s hard work thus far, even taking a moment to toast themselves with crudely poured tequila shots. Coach Party may try to play it cool like the Josh Hommes of the world, but their gratitude for their successes seems impossible to suppress.
See more gigs, comedy and performance at the Wedgewood Rooms in Southsea
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