The Millionaire's Salad

Somewhere along the way and without anyone hipping me to the fact, Hearts of Palm became the go-to vegetable of indie rock band names. Denver has their own Hearts of Palm that recently released a free, four-song EP, but that's not who we're here to talk about today. No, we're discussing Hearts of Palm UK, Los Angeles' electro-pop, multi-instrument trio. HoP UK, incidentally, are not British and apparently refuse to give any explanation of the mysterious suffix. Oh well.

For our purposes, Hearts of Palm UK bear a striking resemblance to the Hot Toddies, I suppose proving that girl groups named after non-standard food and beverages continue to have something in common in this day and age of food snobbery run rampant. There is a contingency here at IA that particularly appreciates the band because their debut album, For Life, was mastered by Henrik Jonsson, the same Swede who worked on IA cover girl Lykke Li's debut. That alone would have had those of us in the LL cult stand up and pay attention.

Fortunately, Erica Elektra (vocals, keyboard, guitar), Frankie Rose (glockenspiel, keyboard, percussion) and newest member Billy Kaye (cello, autoharp, keyboard), bring a bit more than that to the table. Their first single, "People & Logistics", is an amalgam of bleeps and blips interspersed between a catchy beat and engagingly warm vocals. Plus, the girls in the band are tatted up, and who amongst us doesn't dig that?

mp3: People & Logistics