Walt Disco’s ‘Coup De Foudre’ Will Leave You Thunderstruck
- 21 hours ago
- 3 min read
Words by Chiara Strazulla
Over two records which have received a well-deserved number of accolades, it has become apparent that one of Walt Disco’s greatest strengths is their ability to truck with the unexpected. The Glaswegian outfit has played around with the trappings of a number of different genres, and they have often delivered their most successful punches when coming out of left field: the completely earnest, soul-shattering in its simplicity, ballad coming when you would have expected a danceable bop; the synth-laden, layered, broad sound when you would have expected post-punk directness. It has left their genre positioning pleasantly hard to pinpoint, and the range of roads open for them to go down in the future equally pleasantly broad. So it is a testament to their versatility and ability to think out of the box that their newly (and, to an extent, unexpectedly) released single, ‘Coup De Foudre’, comes as an absolute surprise. ‘Fuck what you know about Walt Disco’, their social media messaging warned in the days preceding the track’s release. It was a warning well headed. This song brings everything we thought we knew about Walt Disco into question, and it’s glorious.
Said versatility notwithstanding, there have been, so far, some trappings one might have come to expect from this band: a New Wave-inspired style of composition and, to a lesser extent, of vocals; a combination of classic and experimental elements leaning more pop than rock; a love of the baroque, of the frills and toppings, a delight in being knowingly extra. Thinking of a patron saint for this band, you might be tempted to summon David Bowie, or at the very least Adam Ant. Varied as it has been, their musical offering has shared this fundamental essence: lush, indulgent, and immersive. It worked like a spell over two records, although their sophomore offering, ‘The Warping’, left the lingering question of whether much more could be done with that, in the future, that the band had not by that point already done.
‘Coup De Foudre’ (which means lightning strike: an apt phrase for catastrophically intense love at first sight) answers that question. It does so by doing something else altogether. Even from the very first bar this track is guitar-forward, far more rock than pop, woven through with a subtle callback to an altogether different part of music history: Walt Disco tapping into a different chapter of glam, less that of the British 70s and more that of the American late 80s. This rough edge persists throughout a song that is relentlessly high-energy, almost more headbanging than danceable. And yet this track is also unmistakably catchy: it incorporates a chain of very effective hooks that allow it to simply never stop, racing head-first from beginning to end. It is not the first time that Walt Disco have leaned into their more energetic side, but when they’d done it in the past, they’d done it more haltingly; the most obvious comparison is perhaps ‘Selfish Lover’, which however was still vocal-dominated, still leaning into those little embellishments that here have faded for the most part into the background. Very correctly for a track named after a lightning strike, ‘Coup De Foudre’ is brimming with electricity.
It is also what many of the most successful Walt Disco tracks have been in the past: joyful, self-affirming, bold. The fact that the band is experimenting with a different sound does not mean that they have forgotten their voice or their soul. The voice is still recognisably Walt Disco, just articulated through a different language. It feels like a choice to blaze a new trail, made from a place of greater confidence, a more defined sense of musical identity. It feels, most importantly for a band with two long players at their back, like growth. But it also, just as importantly, feels like a band that is still very keen to have fun with the music they make, looking for new ways to find that fun. That they are finding it in a sharper sound, a different kind of bold, is just another facet of that new confidence.
Gifted, on top of all that, with a great potential for repeat listening (it is the kind of catchy that lends itself to being played over and over again), ‘Coup De Foudre’ will leave you thunderstruck in more than way: with surprise, with adrenaline, with an insistent itch to dance. It will also, as its title promises, make you fall in love with Walt Disco all over again.
See walt disco live
24.06.26 || North Shields || Three Tanners Bank
26.06.26 || Birkenhead || Futureyard
27.06.26 || Hebden Bridge || The Trades Club (early show)
28.06.26 || Frome || The Tree House
30.06.26 || Guilford || Boileroom
01.07.26 || Edinburgh || Sneaky Pete’s
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