Single Review: West Coast Drive by Coterie
By Drummer Vince Leigh (Pseudo Echo, John Farnham, Tina Arena)
Coterie has released a steady flow of singles since 2019, establishing their presence with the break-out track, Cool It Down. The song connected with audiences in their homeland of Aotearoa, New Zealand, hitting #1 on the NZ Radioscope Chart, #1 on Shazam, #1 on the Hot 20 NZ Singles Chart, and peaking at #26 on the Spotify Top 200, where it spent over six months. Over the past two years, Coterie has amassed more than 10 million streams, 1.7 million YouTube views and a healthy global fan base.
The band has just dropped their new single, West Coast Drive, and if the title alone conjures images of breezy, summer-fuelled frolics in a cabriolet, you’re going to enjoy what Coterie’s track has to offer. This soulful pop hybrid has reggae deep inside its bones, but this is not what defines the track—which might have been the case with Cool It Down. Embedded to this ode to a lover’s emotional keepsake are all the necessary ingredients for an accessible and feel-good music listening experience, with lead vocalist Tyler’s intense-sounding timbre and on-point vocal performance feature in this regard.
West Coast Drive is slick and sophisticated, littered with bite-sized hooks and some decent heft in the drum department, and all augmented by a thoughtful, inventive approach to the track’s atmospherics, zipping in and out of the melodic parts and playing an essential role in the concluding segments of the track.
With sold-out shows in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth, and a major stadium tour of Aotearoa, New Zealand, with kiwi band Six60 on the horizon, Coterie appears to be at a pivotal juncture in their career. The five-piece, spearheaded by brothers Tyler, Josh, Brandford, and Conrad of Te Aupouri, Ngāpuhi and Ngai Te Rangi descent, has developed a reputation for their live shows, and West Coast Drive is a reaffirming example, with that reputation will extend to their recording output.
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