Courier Club packs an indie-dance frenzy with raw emotions on debut EP Drive Like Your Kids Live Here

Philly newcomers Courier Club greet you with wiry, high-speed indie dance in the opening seconds of their new EP Drive Like Your Kids Live Here, and it makes us not at all surprised to hear that one of the band’s first bonding activities was at one of DJ Dave P’s storied Making Time parties.

The song in question, “We All Want To Be There,” moves briskly in step with Rapture-style post-punk, and in a press statement, the band describes the scene on the dancefloor that night.

“The room felt foreign, refreshing, void of hierarchy and outright fun,” they say. “This experience was the fuel that sparked the direction of the EP. ‘We All Want to Be There’ is an ode to that newfound community.”

It criticizes the decadent nightclub scene (“It’s a goddamn frat”) as much as it makes a bid to take part, and the five-song EP packs in equally complex views on life in the city and life as a young person in the year 2020.

“It Takes Time” is a reflection on mental health, with singer-guitarist Timothy Waldron unpacking observations like “satisfaction’s not a passion” over adrenalized, earnest dirty disco beats. Waldron calls the song the darkest of the set, as it shows him finding flaws in various coping mechanisms and “accepting the fact that it’s just a part of life for me to take things as they come rather than obsessively plan how I will defeat [depression] everyday.”

Though the majority of the tracks move with maximum energy — “Soundscape 1992” uses wild vocal effects while guitarist Ryan Conway, bassist Michael Silverglade, and drummer Jack Kessler propel the song forward — Courier Club turns unexpectedly sensitive on the closing ballad “My Favorite Game.”

In it, Waldron sings of self-doubt in an unhealthy relationship, “wishing for a blow-out fight” that could end it all, where a person compares their partner somewhat harshly to “a favorite game that comforts me but’s not as exciting to play anymore.” But they also reach a realization that nothing gold can stay, and longevity beyond the shiny-new element is sometimes more important: “Flash forward five years more / I hope you’re with me, I hope I’m still around,” Waldron sings as the instruments swell.

Listen to Drive Like Your Kids Live Here below and find out more about Courier Club on their website.