Attempts To Pay Homage Leaves Band Trying To Find Their Way Home

There’s a fine series of lines as a band between being another group of earnest boys with guitars, a group of earnest boys with guitars that’s not rehashing what every other group has done, and being a group of earnest boys with guitars that makes the rehashing pay off. All of which are equally thin. There’s a good chance that The Coast think that they fall squarely in the middle, but in reality Expatriate spends its eleven tracks deciding if their rehashing is worth your ears’ effort or not.

Opener ‘Tight Rope’ couldn’t be more befitting for this act. It’s warm welcome does little to back up its rather dull followings as the band tries desperately to not fall prey to clichés. So much so that they waste all their talents midway on stellar ‘Floodlights,’ and ‘Killing Off Our Friends’ and are consequently the best on the album by allowing itself to give into the rhythm, repetition, and noise that the rest of the album stays away from. The problems on Expatriate come when The Coast let their noisy repetitive tendencies give way to sappy, unconvincingly tender, boy-feelings.

The lyric “My heart will wait for you/but my heart will fade and you’ll be left,” on ‘Song For Gypsy Rose Lee’ is such miserably overwrought, trite, lyricism that you could argue for handing out the verdict on Expatriate based on such alone. Lyrics about hearts waiting for anything are right up there with love poems as the summit of Kitsch mountain. Unfortunately, the songs after that creamy middle follow the same common formula.

Ironically, it’s the songs that aren’t trying as hard to be earnest that come off as the most genuine. If The Coast can just get away from unconvincing emotional whimpering and move towards the same kind of sonic energy that a few offerings along Expatriate’s unstable path find, then I’m sure they’ll be able to go their own home country. Wait, that’s the deal with them right?

Matthew Richardson