CoConuts’ self-titled album is 35 minutes that make you want to cut yourself and then make out. It's only five songs, each standing independently of the next in a haunted pop atmosphere, kind of like living in the artwork of an R.L. Stine book cover.
It opens with hotly satanic chanting that ushers in hypnotic drums that throb through the whole record. Meanwhile, a piercing guitar offers space to the cavernous tunes, regularly unfastening itself from the rest of the music and screeching upward in contrast to the depth of the guttural low-noted reverberations. Because they only flirt with drone music but ultimately stick to conventional songs that have a bit of melody, the band skirts Sunn O))) territory and floats into tracks like “When She Smiles”, with lyrics about a girl. Guys love this song. They think it’s deep because the rest of the album is so drugged, or maybe it’s the same way certain guys like Cat Stevens. I don't know.
CoConuts seem to be scraping at the surface of nightmarish notions, but their morose sounds don’t send you into a k-hole. Rather, it carries you into a Lynch-esque waiting room of echoes and eerie resonance. Without straying from the Goth Australian HTRK thing these guy’s are vibing on, they manage to braid together a murky sea of demonic and divine into a sound that is intensely their own. I cannot wait to see them live.
