Coach Party, 'Caramel' Album Review

In the two years since their debut album KILLJOY, Coach Party has been rather busy. On the heels of their moody, brash exploration of the mid-twenties’ blues, the Isle of Wight quartet went on their first international tour, performed at South by Southwest and Glastonbury, and opened for Queens of the Stone Age and Wet Leg. Their second record, Caramel, is a breakup album—though the post-mortem analysis is happening in a dingy, punky bar, and who (or what) exactly frontwoman Jess Eastwood has been torn asunder from remains pleasantly vague.

The record maintains a joyous, party-rocking vibe not in spite of but alongside this upset. Coach Party explores the peaks and nadirs of a fuzzily-defined, oft-drunken life with touching sincerity and a sense of tragedy that’s more tongue-in-cheek than it is righteous. The songs this time around are more kinetic than the ones on the band’s debut, buzzing with the raw energy of self-produced indie-rock. It’s a homespun feel that’s already a mainstay in Coach Party’s style—and an admirable effort that helps offset lyrics whose simplicity sometimes risk getting quaint (like how “I’m just an animal / I’m losing all control” on the tortured “Control” can feel a bit rote.) In its best moments, Caramel comes off as intimate and familiar, a sonic ode to the garage sessions and UK venues that have thrust Coach Party into the spotlight.

What Caramel lacks in lyrical prowess is made up for in its energetic instrumentals, thanks to Steph Norris and Joe Perry’s roiling guitar licks and Guy Page’s noisy drums. What’s more, Eastwood has come into her own as a singer, spitting and rasping into the microphone with the confidence of an old pro. In the sexy, frenetic “Girls,” knifing riffs burst into a mosh-y, call-and-response manifesto for feminine fun. “Where the fuck are my girls?” Eastwood demands to know, as punky chords whirlpool behind her. On “Disco Dreams,” she roars, “I don’t need my friends / I don’t need my lover/ I just need myself / and a Bee Gees cover!” Electric trills and head-pounding drumbeats create a sonic claustrophobia comparable to the one Eastwood basks in; you can almost hear an amateurish rendition of “More Than a Woman” and smell the cheap vodka in-between her lines.

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Coach Party has not yet broken out in the States, though their two-year run through Europe was impressively attended. Today’s big American rock acts fronted by women—Mannequin Pussy, Wednesday, Soccer Mommy, and even Paramore immediately come to mind—have complicated their messaging to meet the moment, in songs that address addiction, queer love, grief, and existentialism. American rock music has returned closer and closer to its more radical past, refracting off and pushing through the tensions that plague the country in which the genre originated. Compared to their stateside contemporaries, Coach Party’s lyrics feel a little underbaked; perhaps Starmer is to blame.

As a result, Eastwood’s knack for vocal emotion—one is reminded, at times, of Let Go-era Avril Lavigne—proves essential on an album whose thesis seems to be that even the party animals get their feelings hurt. On the infectious, Y2K head-bopper “Georgina,” Eastwood purrs over moody, distorted guitars: “I miss myself / I wanna get back, get back”; on “Fake It,” she mutters sardonically, “Yeah, I’m tired / Yeah, I’m dead / Been away for a while / But I’m back again.” The latter is mopey and self-indulgent, while layered vocals and a looping guitar series force the listener to partake in her entrapment. It’s a nifty trick that adds to the track’s pathos.

Caramel is only thirty-three minutes long, each of its ten tracks succinct, simple, and to the point. Though the paths Coach Party goes down are well-trodden, their step is practiced in a way that proves undeniably impressive. On closer “Still Hurts,” Eastwood’s complaint of love lost reads itself like an artist’s manifesto: “Keep repeating / Questions to myself / Lost the feeling / Or at least that’s what I thought / Tell yourself it’s better, then just move on.” That Coach Party refuses to do just that, basking instead in the failures and foibles of their messy young lives, gives Caramel its ammunition. The record is chaotic, gunky music that rings in your ears for hours after you’ve turned it off. Just like its title suggests, the songs are sticky, addictive, and fun. Even if they’re not quite meaty enough to shine on by themselves, they prove a wonderful treat.

Miranda Wollen is a former Paste Music intern. She lives in New York and attends school in Connecticut, but you can find her online @mirandakwollen.

Coach Party Get Sticky on Caramel

The Isle of Wight band’s sophomore album is short, sweet, and polished—supplanting lyrical banality with energetic instrumentals done in tribute to the garage sessions and venues that have thrust them into the UK’s modern indie-rock canon.