Cocos Lovers are a 7-piece band of family, friends and former au-pairs. Their music swells with powerful choir-like harmonies and glorious widescreen melodies, and they've earned a reputation for fantastic live performances with an ever-changing instrumental line-up of mandolin, banjo, acoustic and electric guitars, harmonica, violin, musical saw, flute and a unique blend of drums and percussion.

Gold or Dust is the band's third album, and the first thing that sprung to mind was how much like Talking Heads they sound; their style, in places, is remarkably similar. This is most obvious on tracks 'Walk Among The Ghosts'; 'Son Of A Merchant'; and 'Hollow Is The Ground'. I think it was the main vocals and guitar riffs that brought to mind Talking Heads more than anything else.

The music is folk with an African twist - if you can imagine such a thing - the end result is surprisingly fresh and certainly worth checking out.

7

Nick Smithson