You know when you just can't place a sound however many times you listen to it? Well, this CD really had me thinking. I knew that I liked what I was hearing - and as a child of the seventies, I could recognise the glam rock era trying to seep through - but there was that elusive other than glam in the music that I recognised. Chequered trousers kept springing to mind while I was listening to the first track, and in the end I just couldn't bear the suspense any more and had to phone a friend and play it to him down the phone. And you know what? He knew exactly who I meant but couldn't place it either!!! Don't you hate that?

Anyway, the practical upshot of all this is that there are so many influences in there that the music is hard to categorise. For a start, tracks one and two are totally different from tracks three and four. The first track, "Feels like you're falling in love again", reminds us most of a mixture of the Bay City Rollers from the 70s and The Searchers from the 60s - It's all very upbeat and lively, and I have to admit to finding myself swaying in my seat to the music.

When I first put the track on the Beach Boys came to mind, but although the rhythm was there Koala didn't have the harmony that the Beach Boys always had. Then I came to track 2, "Take the controls", and the harmony was there right at the start - "That," I thought, "is the beach boys". Nice to know I saw it coming...

Tracks 3 and 4 are a different kettle of anchovies, having a slightly more modern rock-pop feel. However, as the CD is named "The solid-gold collection" I would assume that Koala have tried to go for a seventies rock feel, and if so have done quite well. On the other hand, this title also implies that they have other more modern influences which appear on other CDs. All in all, it was an enjoyable afternoons listening and certainly took me back to the days of "real rock" - and there, I really am showing my age!

The website:
I have to say, it's nice to see some bands taking advantage of new technology to showcase their sites. The Planetkoala website content is totally designed in Flash which gives it a "must play" feel. Just to give you a taster of what the band have in store if you visit, try moving the mouse over the picture of the burning bear on the homepage and see what happens. These peeps have a seriously warped sense of humour!

On the "Koala Interactive" page, you can take part in several undesirable (or desirable, depending on your viewpoint) games. Amongst these are "Kill David Hasselhoff" where you get to dispose of the Baywatch celeb (where's KITT when you need him now, David?), and the "Snog Koala" game which I didn't even want to get into.

The story behind Koala is a bit hard to fathom. The site takes us through a demented story of people joining, people leaving, houses falling down and records made with the help of little girls, vacuum cleaners and snoring (and I don't even want to go there). According to the letter we received with the CD, the name Koala came from outer space, gouged into the side of a huge floating black slab by the Owl overlords of Orbitron - and their history is discussed in Darwin's "Origin of the Species". Don't worry, lads, the men in white coats will be with you shortly.

You can read more about the band and their surreal humour at http://www.planetkoala.com. This is a well put together site, and any bands out there looking to win the higher KlubKat website awards (see the KBA Award page) should take heed. Oh, and if you wonder why you get a travel company, then you've probably done what I did and tried to get there using the old name koalaworld. Really threw me, that - I thought Koala were branching out (pun intended)...