Calling yesterday a big day for the Weekend Run Club might be putting it lightly. The five piece band consisting of Mitchell Kinn (vocalist), Bridget Stiebris (drummer/manager), Haley Blomquist (bassist), Christopher Bryant (guitarist) and Joey Resko (guitarist) released their full length debut album Zoo which follows their 2018 EP Okay For You. Prior to the album’s release, the band teased the album with “Beck” and “Rhode Island” which gave us a glimpse that Zoo would potentially be much like Okay For You. Answer time: It very much is and that’s an incredible thing.
The band’s sound so far has been full of incredible energy so opening Zoo with “Always”, a simple quiet reflective track about how memories live on forever with Kinn singing in the chorus “When you go where I can’t follow, I’ll still sing for you, my love”, is a quite a powerful statement. The song gradually builds as bass and drums are added before the song explodes at the 2:41 mark, thrusting the song into familiar Weekend Run Club song territory with its danceability (not sure if that’s a word but if not, it is now).
If there’s one thing above all the rest that Zoo establishes, it establishes the Weekend Run Club’s unique sound. Yes there are moments when you go “oh that kinda sounds like x band or y song” but it’s hard to pinpoint. They don’t sound exactly like any other band and that’s a great thing. You struggle to find a comparison to match them to, which when recommending their music you just have to say “they sound like the Weekend Run Club, trust me it’s unique”.
Sonically it’s technically extremely tight and like I said in my review of Okay For You, it’s like Zoo sits in the middle of the band’s prime, not their debut. The straight continuation of “Sometimes” into “Let’s Think Back” is a brilliant decision that will probably be unappreciated but it’s something I wish the band did more. The clarity speaks massive volumes, even when Bryant and Resko shred their strong more intense solos, the sound doesn’t suffer as often times with other bands it does. I thought about that a lot especially on “Let’s Think Back” and “Tonight”. “Casually Dancing”, a song which makes you want to do exactly that while slipping in neatly a reference to Velvet Rose, “Tired”, a song full of slick guitar riffs and lyrics about seemingly wanting to talk to someone but their silence of never answering screams way too loud all the time, and “Better”, a song that made me google eviscerate while being one of the more complete songs on the album (something that is very hard to do on here as all the tracks are pretty complete) further display all the ways the Weekend Run Club can go while still being unique to who they are and their sound.
It’s one thing to say it’s a big day releasing a debut album at all because it’s the first, it’s sometimes the only opportunity to make a record, and it’s the first real statement an artist makes to the world. However it is a far bigger thing to say it’s a big day releasing a body of work is a spark and subsequently causing an explosion. That’s what Zoo is; the result of hard work striking itself on great relationships and musical ability. The Weekend Run Club is just getting started, with their album premiere show next Friday at the Beat Kitchen, and it’s only a matter of time before Zoo, a spark, becomes the explosion that thrusts the band into higher places, places they deserve to be.
Rating: 10 out of 10
Favorite Tracks: “Always”, “Casually Dancing”, “Tired”, “Sometimes”, “Let’s Think Back”, “Better”, “Tonight”, “Overwhelming”
Strait From My Turntable 