Les Crazy Coconuts

Normally when you pop in an album and the album cover is completely fucking tropical balls, complete with palm trees and coconuts and a happy fucking font spelling out the band name, you're in for some tropicana. Reggae maybe? Possibly even some island shit you'd only ever listen to when trying to complete a vibe for a party with an annoying theme. 

Enter the self titled album from Les Crazy Coconuts.

This fucking album has NOTHING to do with tropical ANYTHING. Instead, Les Crazy Coconuts is surprisingly one of the better indie rock albums I've stumbled upon in 2015. 

Les Crazy Coconuts sound like a perfect smooshwich of the bands Wool, Muse, and Solid Gold. 

Wool was a band I got into in the 90s because they had a song with the lyrics "NOW THAT SUPERMAN IS DEAD, WHO WILL KICK ASS?" and I sort of fell in love with the shrill vocals that fronted that rock band. They took distortion to a level I had only ever experienced on Helmet albums, but their vocals managed to somehow tame the noise and give all that sound some direction. 

I mention Muse because the theatrical vocal is obvious, and Muse is one of the few that can pull the shit off without sounding corny balls, but we need to add Les Crazy Coconuts to that short list. Seriously, check out the song "Define" and then tell me you aren't singing with your hands. 

As far as the Solid Gold mention, I've been hearing their sound in a lot of music lately, but it's their bounding bass lines that seem to show up all over Les Crazy Coconuts, and it's ethereal to hear from a band that I'm certain hasn't heard a single song from Solid Gold.

Les Crazy Coconuts had my attention after I heard the single "Speed Shoes", but it was less than three minutes long and I felt there was more I wasn't understanding about their identity. How does a dancey indie rock song like that come out of a band called Les Crazy Coconuts?

Something didn't make sense. 

The self titled album has ten tracks, including both an intro and an outro, so there's only eight songs on here. But then there's an interlude track called "Human Radio Station" which doesn't really do anything for me after the initial listen, so there's seven songs. But then the first actual song "Belong" has this dirty London rock vibe to it that doesn't immediately connect with the "Speed Shoes", and it's almost annoying because it's an obvious portrait of a rock song that Les Crazy Coconuts wouldn't actually write.

But then the album starts for me. "Words Unsaid" sounds fucking HUUUUUUGE, with a simple rhythm, the layered vocals take this from decent to fucking awesome almost instantly. BUT WAIT THE FUCK UP, WHAT IS HAPPENING?

At 1:58 on "Words Unsaid" something happens that takes Les Crazy Coconuts from a good band I can see myself listening to into a band I could find myself obsessing over. The rhythmic riff stacking happening here is fucking beautifully executed and one of the most captivating invitations to slap my own lap I've ever heard. If that little 34 seconds of bliss doesn't float your boat, you don't fucking deserve a boat. That shit is worth the price of admission on its own. DAMN.

So this is Les Crazy Coconuts. They're not goofy, they're not childish, they're not fucking around, this band is fucking insanely talented. I want more.

I've already sucked off "Speed Shoes", but in this new context alongside "Words Unsaid" this band is blowing my chest hair back into a sprouted butterfly pattern and I'm all the fuck over it.

When "Myself" hits I can sort of envision where this band could be in a few years if someone else besides our shitty little music site caught on to this shit. Their marriage of sultry synths, amazingly consistent drums, and perfectly delivered guitar work is the perfect bed for the vocals to roll around on top of. The rhythm that hit me on "Words Unsaid" is lingering in the shadows on this song, and that ticka-ticka-ticka shit happening makes me, again, wanna slap me lap. 

I'll be honest in that I don't understand why you'd have a band this amazing and name them something as whimsically goofy as Les Crazy Coconuts, or have an album cover that's so over the top sunshine when the music itself is intense as shit, but I've given in.

Les Crazy Coconuts make up for three wasted tracks and make the 85.7% of the remaining seven tracks well fucking worth it. 

If I lived where this band lived, I'd make it a life goal to see them perform as much as possible before the rest of the world catches on, because on a larger stage these motherfuckers would MURDER. 

Bet me.