An array of producers including Fraser T Smith (Adele, Sam Smith) and Duncan Mills (Jake Bugg) have been tasked with turning Coasts’ workaday material into huge feelgood hits, and they have delivered with brutal efficiency. Everything about the Bristol five-piece’s debut album is super-slick and tailormade for daytime pop radio. Banger after banger thumps along in the same one-dimensional vein until the more subdued Wash Away, whose opening verse is so dull that you soon pine for Coasts to return to pounding singalong mode. Which they do, of course, at the chorus. The unambiguously imploring lyrics are so samey that “holding on” features in the chorus of Wolves (“Now we’re holding on”) and the very next track, You “You make me feel like I’m holding on to something real”). At one point Modern Love echoes the rhythm David Bowie used on his 1983 song of the same name, unwisely inviting comparison. Expect to hear Coasts’ pumped-up anthems in a shoe-shop near you – just don’t expect an iota of character.
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