Before the single’s release, she was already working on her own original music. “Never Be”, “Control”, “I Blame Coco”, and “No Smile” are a few of the demos that can be found across the web. They have a ska-without-brass/reggae sound to them, but it seems that this sound got old quick for her, or she just thought she couldn’t do enough with the genre.

The single: “Caesar”. Robyn (Sweden’s take on Lady Gaga with less gimmicks) provides vocal support on this vague song that references a few famous authority-related themes (Lord of the Flies, the Milgram Experiment). Miike Snow and Diplo both remixed this song at the time of the single’s release.

Later, Sub Focus became a collaborator, but this time it’s Coco providing the supporting vocals to the song. Together they made the song “Splash”, which has also seen some success and a remix by Rusko. The original instrumental track can be found on Sub Focus’s self-titled debut album, and the version with Coco Sumner’s vocals is on the “Splash” single.

Fyfe Dangerfield also worked with Sumner a bit; they ended up recording a cover of Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”. This hasn’t seen an official release yet.

On the MySpace account of I Blame Coco at the moment of this post, you can hear a number of the songs I mentioned, including a 2 minute sample of a completely revamped “No Smile”. You will also find “Self Machine”, which sounds like it is going to be the next single. The fact that it has been remixed by La Roux seems to back up this theory.

An album should be out soon. If not in a month or two, sometime this year at most. The improvement you can hear from the demos to the new samples show great promise for this artist, and not just for this upcoming release. The ability to work with such a wide variety of musicians (all of different genres so far) suggests great talent, so it’s up to you to pick a genre you like and give Coco a chance!

The Red Sparowes have the first and last track on this compilation. They have longer song titles than Fall Out Boy, but at least they’re not corny. “Alone And Unaware, The Landscape Was Transformed In Front of Our Eyes” and “Buildings Began To Stretch Wide Across the Sky, and the Air Filled With a Reddish Glow” were both live tracks, but you could hardly tell because they were mixed without an audience track (and since they have no vocalist, they didn’t have a microphone to capture even the slightest bit of audience sound). They are the most progressive songs from the set, and offer the listener quite the musical journey.

The second and third songs were by Battle of Mice, a female fronted alternative, progressive, heavy rock band. The songs “Sleep & Dream” and “The Lamb & The Labrador” are both studio tracks, but are listed as edits; probably shorter versions of the tracks found on the album. Both songs feature some unusual dark lyrics, vocals, and interesting drum patterns. There is a nice variety of guitar tones that really round off the songs well, and could not be pulled off by many bands.

Made Out Of Babies has the same lead singer as Battle of Mice, but there were some considerable differences. “Proud To Drown” and “Gunt” still have the flavor of Julie Christmas’s unique vocal styles, but the band uses less guitar effects. There are occasional backing vocals and a little more distortion on the guitars than Battle of Mice.

It was a good set of songs overall. At times it would get droning, but due to the lack of repetition in the songs, you wouldn’t hear the same dull part in the song again. It reminded me of The Mars Volta at times, but these bands have surely made musical innovations of their own. Triad offers a collection of dark progressive rock samples that doesn’t confront you to too many bands at once and could introduce someone to the sub-genre without overwhelming them.