The Weekend Run Club is comprised of four nerds and one other nerd who is also a doctor. One of the nerds writes manly indie rock songs and the rest of the nerds bring the songs to life with the music. The music is something lively and whimsical; you must dance to it. The lyrics are almost always way too serious. When life hurts, The Weekend Run Club will be there, dancing their faces off.
Right before venues across the country shuttered, The Weekend Run Club played a sold-out show at the Beat Kitchen in their hometown of Chicago. Feeding off the band’s infectious energy, palpable heartbreak, and undeniable wanderlust seems like a pipe dream without their live set. For now, why don’t you enter Zoo, the five-piece’s proper debut?
Zoo’s main creature features meet at the intersection of lost love and misshapen identity, where vocalist Mitchell Jay (he/they) unravels character sketches across a cityscape that evolves as confessions are made and bonds are changed. “Rhode Island” travels through the colors of all four seasons but lands on the unmistakable shimmer of summer nights, late night drives made limitless by urgent instrumentals. Even the double feature of “Sometimes” and “Let’s Think Back” have such a hunger for openness that the album’s January 2020 street date feels awfully premature for something so deeply universal.
With delirious guitar solos tearing the ceiling off alt-rock structures shocked by danceable rhythms, the Weekend Run Club combines the endurance of dance floor anthems with the identity crises that follow a night on the town—or a quiet night in.