Album Review: The Lottery Winners – KOKO

You’d be surprised that I don’t refer to The Lottery Winners as hailing from Manchester – they’re not… they’re from Leigh!!! The band have returned after two years to release their forth studio album, KOKO, following the success of their number one smash Anxiety Replacement Therapy in 2023.  KOKO (an initialism for Keep on keeping on) was released through Modern Sky UK, is a celebration of the band’s friendship and commitment to making music… Let’s see if this celebration creates some good sounds, shall we!?

Starting off with the bouncy Superpower you can tell the high production quality.  There is a definite influence of the 90’s ‘Madchester’ scene in this bouncy track, with spoken word lyrics and short simple hook coming from the female vocals.  You Again follows with a similar bouncy feel to the track, but that is where the similarities end – this is more a straight pop song, with Katie Lloyd and Thom Rylance sharing the lyrical load, whereas subsequent track Panic Attack has an island vibe feel musically… but again maintains the bouncy quality that we’ve had since the start of the album… but the lyrics are a touch contrasting!

UFO slows the pace down in what is somewhat of a filler track IMO, and this slower vibe continues with he assistance of Nikelback’s Chad Kroeger in Ragdoll, and Struggling – which for me is the best offering of the four, with real heart and feeling to it over the others offered.  Turn Around is a short track with provides a good pivot to the mood, seeing an upturn in tempo, and is followed by similarly bouncy  Monaco.  Three Wishes sees the band’s (pretty good, actually) attempt at an acoustic track, simple guitar and violin backing uncomplicated lyrics snd melodies.

Entering the letter stages of the album, Dirt and Gold is a great track, and sees the band returning to their typical sound.  Penultimate track The Ceiling continues the theme, though I cannot help but feel this is a Lottery Winners take on Blur’s Parklife – that being said, this is the best track on the album… you can definitely hear the Shed Seven influence.  Ending the offering with their title track (of sorts), Keep On Keeping On – a quality down tempo track to round off proceedings strongly.

KOKO is a well produced, well put together album.  It feels like something put together with good craftsmanship and well considered track construction and placing (case in point: the lyric “keep on keeping on” regularly appears throughout the album (don’t think that was lost on me)…it’s nice little touches like that which come across well).  Honestly, this is not my jam, but I can appreciate the high level of quality and love put into this album. That being said, I do think The Ceiling will be added to my favourites, and I’d implore people to give it a listen – I think the Lottery Winners are the best advert of this sub-genre of music.  If you like this style of music, you will love this.

Graeme R