FEATURE:
A Buyer’s Guide
Part Seventy-Two: The Coral
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FOR this A Buyer’s Guide…
I am highlighting the best albums from The Coral. The fabulous Merseyside band formed in 1996. Twenty-five years after they started out, they are still producing sensational ands hugely original music. Their tenth studio album, Coral Island, was released earlier this year. Before getting to the albums from The Coral that you should investigate, here is some biography from AllMusic:
“Since their debut in the early 2000s, the Coral proved to be one of the most consistent bands in the U.K. retro-rock scene thanks to their knack for crafting sneakily good hooks, the jangling interplay of the guitars, and James Skelly's powerful vocals. Their rambunctious sound deftly mixes together elements of '60s garage rock, psychedelic pop, and folk-rock, spicing it with bits of Merseybeat, Motown, vintage blues, and even sea shanties. The band's 2002 self-titled debut album topped the U.K. charts, and even as their sound changed over the years, taking detours to spooky folk on 2004's Nightfreak and the Sons of Becker, stripped-down indie pop on 2005's Portishead-produced The Invisible Invasion, and expansively heavy '70s rock on 2016's Distance Inbetween, they stayed popular and influential. 2021's Coral Island displays all their influences over a double-length concept album devoted to memories of English seaside resort towns.
Hailing from Hoylake, a town on the Wirral Peninsula just across the River Mersey from Liverpool, the band was formed in 1996 by school friends vocalist/guitarist James Skelly, guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones, drummer Ian Skelly, and bassist Paul Duffy, and were soon joined by another guitarist, Lee Southall. After a couple years of rehearsing and playing shows, they added keyboardist Nick Power to the lineup. Their vintage sound and mysterious songs piqued the interest of former Shack drummer Alan Willis, who launched the Deltasonic label specifically to release the Coral's music, beginning with a 2001 single and a pair of EPs that led up to their breakthrough 2002 self-titled debut LP. The album was an immediate success, reaching number five on the U.K. charts and garnering a Mercury Prize nomination the day after its release. Though the next year was filled with a hectic touring schedule, they were able to quickly write a batch of songs and headed to the studio with producer Ian Broudie, who had worked with one of the band's touchstones, Echo & the Bunnymen. Released in 2003, Magic and Medicine was a focused album, with more cohesive songs and a streamlined sound. It hit the top of the U.K. album charts, and the band expanded the scope of its touring by heading to the U.S., Europe, and Japan. While in the middle of all that, they repaired to a small shed in North Wales with Broudie to record what turned out to be a stopgap before their next album. The Nightfreak and the Sons of Becker mini-album explored darker territory than the previous album, and had a lo-fi and experimental sound in comparison.
Their next album took a completely different tack, as the group headed into the studio with Portishead's Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley. Working together, they stripped the band's sound down to the spooky essentials to create a powerfully sparse setting for the band's most impressive songs yet. After the album's release, Ryder-Jones stepped down as a touring member of the band and was replaced by guitarist David McDonnell for the subsequent tour dates that included some with Arctic Monkeys. The band began work on another record, minus Ryder-Jones' participation, but abandoned the project before it could be completed. Instead, they welcomed Ryder-Jones back and began work on their fourth album with producers Broudie and Craig Silvey. The resulting folk-rock and sunshine pop-influenced Roots & Echoes was issued in 2007 and reached the Top Ten of the U.K. album charts. Soon after the record came out, Ryder-Jones left the band for good, citing agoraphobia, depression, and nervous anxiety brought on by being in the group as the reasons.
Regrouping as a five-piece, the Coral enlisted legendary producer John Leckie (who had worked with everyone from XTC to Radiohead) to work on their sixth album. Arriving in 2010, Butterfly House was the band's most modern-sounding work to date, with Leckie giving their sunny psych-pop sound a little extra studio gloss. Along with the album proper, the quartet also released an acoustic version, simply titled Butterfly House Acoustic, later in the year. Sessions with Leckie for the band's next album were started at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studio, and they got about halfway through before they decided to go on hiatus. The bandmembers felt like they were running out of gas creatively and wanted to work on other projects.
Ian Skelly's Cut from a Star came out quickly in 2012 and James Skelly's Love Undercover followed the next year on the brothers' own Skeleton Key label. Ian also formed the band Serpent Power with former Zutons member Paul Molloy and released a self-titled album in 2014. That same year, Skeleton Key released the album the Coral had nearly finished in 2006. Recorded on an eight-track tape machine, The Curse of Love had a lo-fi psychedelic folk sound and featured 12 songs that had never before seen the light of day. During the process of getting the release together, Skelly decided he had a batch of Coral songs ready to go and the band, minus Southall, reconvened to start making music again.
Inspired by the memory of their mentor Willis, who died in a cycling accident in 2014, and the sounds of Can and Hawkwind, the foursome quickly got some songs together. They were joined in the studio by producer Rich Turvey and guitarist Molloy, who added his Stooges-influenced guitar parts, and then stuck around to join the band officially. Distance Inbetween, which was heavier and more '70s-influenced than anything they had previously done, was their first album not to be released by Deltasonic. It came out in 2018 on Ignition Records instead. After a couple years spent playing shows, running Skeleton Key and Parr Street Studios in Liverpool, and, in James Skelly's case, producing the highly regarded indie group Blossoms, the band found time to record its ninth album, 2018's Move Through the Dawn. Working again with Turvey, the band took a step back from the heavy sound of the previous record in favor of something much poppier, inspired by Jeff Lynne's production and the rambling spirit of the Traveling Wilburys. After spending much of 2019 in the studio, working on a wide range of material, and at one point almost scrapping the project before turning it into a double album, the band were ready to release their tenth album when the global pandemic sent the band into lockdown with the rest of the world. They spent time tweaking the finished tracks and recorded and released an album of songs recorded during lockdown. A collection of Coral classics and covers done acoustically by James Skelly, The Lockdown Sessions was issued in May of 2020. Almost a full year later, Coral Island was released. Drawing from all the musical threads of their long career, the record is inspired by classic concept albums like Odgens Nut Gone Flake and Village Green Preservation Society; the first half plays like an imagined soundtrack to busy fairgrounds, while the latter, more somber section focuses on the out-of-season lives of its characters”.
To acknowledge and honour the terrific work from The Coral, I have recommended their four essential albums, an underrated gem and their latest studio album (I could not find a book specifically about the band to mention). If you are new to The Coral, then this guide below should…
HELP you out.
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The Four Essential Albums
The Coral
Release Date: 29th July, 2020
Label: Deltasonic
Producers: Ian Broudie/Zion Egg (co.)
Standout Tracks: Shadows Fall/Simon Diamond/Skeleton Key
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/the-coral/the-coral-5136bcc9-90db-4da6-bffa-087350a77380
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/6Fhnezpt7TKojq1ufkZ5qA?si=S9AhsLFDQDWVRq0ikf5csA&dl_branch=1
Review:
“Dunno how it happened. But thanks to a glitch in the time-space continuum, The Coral's brilliant, bizarre debut album arrives with us in mid-2002, fresh from the British beat boom of 1964. En route they've navigated their way via Country Joe & The Fish, Leadbelly, Motown, The Doors, Russian Cossack music, the (early) The Coral, The Action, Hawaiian instrumentals, WWF wrestling, Scouse luminaries The Stairs and Shack (former drummer Alan Wills, fittingly, is their manager) and, most probably, Captain Birdseye. It's so nautically-inclined you can almost smell the fishing nets. And all the work of six straggly youths from Hoylake, Merseyside - where else? - the eldest of whom, leather-lunged singer James Skelly, weighs in at a wizened 21. Too much.
In The Coral's company, the usual critical shorthand isn't so much made redundant as turned into hieroglyphics. Take 'Goodbye'. Stomping rhythm 'n' blues for two minutes, then suddenly the guitars flip into gonzo-punk overload and then whoooosh, it's turned into that dream sequence bit in 'Wayne's World 2' where Wayne meets Jim Morrison in the desert, before wriggling to a triumphant conclusion in four minutes flat.
Tunes so joyous you thought they only existed on dusty 45s in ancient pub jukeboxes appear regularly through the mist. 'Dreaming Of You' is two minutes and 19 seconds of yearning pop confusion ('I still need you but/I don't want you') to rival both Madness' 'When I Dream' and Frank Zappa' 'My Girl' (told you it was weird); 'Skeleton Key' is a deranged Coral tribute that morphs into a gothic mariachi shuffle and finally, sublime, slippery Grace Jones disco and 'Shadows Fall', as you know, features the first ever marriage of ragtime, Egyptian reggae and barbershop on record. All orchestrated by Joe Meek (sombrero's off, incidentally, to Ian Broudie for an impeccable production).
But The Coral display not the slightest trace of Gomez-ian worthiness, just an insane joy at being able to make an album that, as James has gone on record as saying, sounds 'timeless'. Only the Super Furriesand would dare show such disrespect for the rulebook, but even they, you suspect, would draw the line at skiffle-driven Gregorian sea shanties” – NME
Choice Cut: Dreaming of You
Magic and Medicine
Release Date: 28th July, 2003
Label: Deltasonic
Producers: Ian Broudie/The Coral (co.)
Standout Tracks: Secret Kiss/Bill McCai/Confessions of A.D.D.D.
Buy: https://www.banquetrecords.com/the-coral/magic-and-medicine/MOVLP1889
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3vd7xfTaPLTZZFIfSOzxLp?si=LvHLThsYR2-S5-oI3blxJg&dl_branch=1
Review:
“Mixing equal bits Merseybeat melody, ragged Nuggets energy, and pure rock nostalgia, the Coral create one of the 21st century's finest odes to 1960s and 1970s garage rock. Not since The La's has a band more convincingly aped an era, and like that album, there's not a cringe-worthy moment in sight. If the lads were accused of being too bombastic and experimental on their debut, here they rein in their influences and just stick with the program of creating rocking tunes. The songwriting, playing, and production are so subtle, one almost imagines that these 12 songs are lost sonic treats from the Animals, Love, or some forgotten band of psych-pop dreamers. While a number of the songs stick out as highlights, particularly the catchy U.K. singles "Don't Think You're the First" and "Pass It On," a majority of the songs work as growers. While the band has abandoned the rousing loony attitude of its debut, and filtered out any ska influence, jazz, blues, and Spanish guitar motifs keep things varied. Beyond the singles, every track works its own fine magic, but the spooky, chugging "Bill McCai" and the atmospheric ballad "Careless Hands" are particularly noteworthy. The album loses its bearings somewhat after "Pass It On," not because the final two songs are weak, but because they stray from the even tone of the previous ten songs. Remarkably authentic in recovering the vibes of early British rock, Magic and Medicine is a mature, solid throwback. Whether or not the Coral travel these same musical avenues in the future, for now they've definitely created an album that's a world unto itself, and one that's well worth repeat visits” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: Don't Think You're the First
The Invisible Invasion
Release Date: 23rd May, 2005
Label: Deltasonic
Producers: Adrian Utley/Geoff Barrow
Standout Tracks: She Sings the Mourning/Something Inside of Me/Arabian Sand
Buy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Invisible-Invasion-Coral/dp/B000808YY6
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/1PioHkWD8fyM5UhrzxMQkS?si=1buZbk5YSQuk4GCGdBFLyg&dl_branch=1
Review:
“Not content with just referencing the usual suspects (The Beatles et al), The Coral have a knack of revisiting more recent Merseyside luminaries such as Julian Cope and Ian McCulloch's back catalogue when constructing a tune, and here is no exception, with 'A Warning To The Curious' and 'Far From The Crowd' both casting a knowing glance towards The Teardrop Explodes' 'Sleeping Gas' and 'When I Dream' respectively, as Nick Power's Hammond crashes in and out of time with an opulent menace, orchestrated by the twin twanging of Bill Ryder-Jones and Lee Southall, with James Skelly swooning "If I never had you..." hauntingly punctuating the former, while a wall of reverb halts the latter on both take-off and mid-flight.
Sure enough, The Coral have always done simplistic songs with paramount ease, and 'So Long Ago' and 'Come Home' are no exception, both borrowing from the same guidebook as 'Dreaming Of You' and 'Pass It On' in that their charm lies in the initial feeling that they are so "throwaway" that anyone can write them, despite the fact that seldom few artists do with the aplomb of The Coral.
'Something Inside Of Me' meanwhile is what 'London Calling' would have sounded like if Strummer and Jones had spent the summer of 1978 holed up in Toxteth rather than Brixton, Skelly offering the couplet "The invisible invasion, it's like a stranger, strangled on the moor" that sets it's mushroom'n'opium cocktail apart from The Clash's ganj'n'rum infested r'n'b. Similarly 'The Operator' feels like it could have been lifted from Echo And The Bunnymen's timeless 'Crocodiles' album, as the Manzarek swirl of Power's organ wraps itself around a psychotic groove reminiscent of both the Cavern in the 60s and Erics in the late 70s whilst Skelly opines "they're coming to take me away...".
By far the most engaging track here though is 'Arabian Sand', a five minute blissed out stomp that owes as much to Julian Covey's Northern Soul epic 'A Little Bit Hurt' as it does Liverpool's music hall of fame, and also sees the Coral in (semi)vitriolic mood as they take out their frustration on "the madman in the desert".
Ending with the curtains drawn, time for bed ballad of 'Late Afternoon', it almost seems like The Coral may have burnt themselves out making this record. Let's hope not because 'The Invisible Invasion' is far from being a difficult third album, instead providing another shining example that the Grandsons of Invention have plenty more use for their test tubes and bunsen burners just yet” – Drowned in Sound
Choice Cut: In the Morning
Distance Inbetween
Release Date: 4th March, 2016
Label: Ignition Records
Producers: Richard Turvey/The Coral
Standout Tracks: White Bird/Chasing the Tail of a Dream/Holy Revelation
Buy: https://www.fiveriserecords.co.uk/product/coral-distance-inbetween/
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/6cw9U3LIFGGMbqqQPl2aXf?si=aluRpMbKT-2Ith7AgXkNEg&dl_branch=1
Review:
“Fourteen years have passed since The Coral’s self-titled debut catapulted them from the new act pub circuit to the Top Ten, back when such an achievement truly meant something, and it’s a rather different version of the band that pitches up with this heavier, fuzzier album. The wide-eyed, chemically enhanced euphoria of that first set has morphed over time into a sound that is more intense and less ephemeral.
They seemed to have lost their way a little after 2005’s third outing ‘The Invisible Invasion’, hunting for singles at the expense of their parent records. A case in point is ‘Jacqueline’, from ‘Roots & Echoes’, a truly magnificent song that starkly contrasts with its stodgily pleasant companions. When ‘lost’ 2006 recording ‘The Curse Of Love’ was quietly released in 2014, it served as a reminder that The Coral could be quite the album band, able to craft a coherent set that delivered a sustained and absorbing mood.
The reference points largely remain in the ‘60s, but a little later in that formative decade. The riffs are elongated and the quest for cheap thrills has long since faded. A slight chill is felt on several tracks as the sense that they are perilously close to a less hyperbolically testosterone-coated Kasabian emerges, but it can be largely overcome. For all the tinkering around the edges, the knack for melody married with James Skelly’s gloriously emotive voice has always been The Coral’s calling card and so it remains.
‘Distance Inbetween’ certainly possesses its own sonic landscape, fluctuating little across its duration but occupying the territory in confident, coherent fashion. ‘Connector’ buzzes like an alarm and makes for an arresting opening, while ‘White Bird’ commences a neat line in multi-tracked vocals that is used to fine effect on several occasions. The title track hinges on the mid-paced melancholia that is one of the band’s hallmarks, but no less beautiful for being ever so slightly familiar.
‘She Runs The River’ twinkles magically, multiple Skellys floating atop a spaced out soundscape. It’s an exercise in understatement that serves as a reminder of the intuitive interplay that has developed over the years. It is topped, however, by ‘Miss Fortune’, the album’s joyous highlight. With its Krautrock-tinged rhythm, backwards guitar and soaring chorus, it suggests that this rested and revitalised incarnation of The Coral still has plenty to offer. Having grown tired, their enthusiasm is audibly restored” – CLASH
Choice Cut: Miss Fortune
The Underrated Gem
Butterfly House
Release Date: 12th July, 2010
Label: Deltasonic
Producer: John Leckie
Standout Tracks: More than a Lover/Walking in the Winter/Butterfly House
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=263927&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/58mxHA6d29lBNysgUDdvwZ?si=fpzD24dlT12nrG51T4ngww&dl_branch=1
Review:
“Five albums into their career -- or six, depending on whether or not you count the limited-edition Nightfreak and the Sons of Becker, which the band apparently doesn't -- the Coral find themselves as close as they've ever come to the "mainstream" with Butterfly House. The U.K. psych revivalists' first two albums are winningly quirky outings full of gloriously skewed pop sensibilities, but from 2005's The Invisible Invasion onward, the band has moved toward an increasingly more straightforward approach. It seems likely that the Coral would have continued in that direction even if guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones hadn't departed before the making of Butterfly House, but his exit may have pushed the band even further from the willful weirdness of its past. The trademark ‘60s influences are still present in no uncertain terms, but instead of drawing inspiration from the druggy, trippy side of that era's sounds, Butterfly House hones in on a more pop-savvy vibe, coming out closer to, say, the Association than Pink Floyd. In the process, the lads have made their most hook-laden and, yes, accessible album to date, full of infectious melodies and indelible riffs. Some champions of the band's early albums may consider this to be some kind of betrayal, but in fact it's simply part of an inevitable maturation process, and considering the results, a very welcome one indeed. And while the Coral's music will probably always have a strong connection to the past, Butterfly House turns out to be the band's most contemporary-sounding album to date, depending as it does on timeless pop values more than psychedelic spelunking” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: 1000 Years
The Latest Album
Coral Island
Release Date: 30th April, 2021
Labels: Run On/Modern Sky UK
Producers: The Coral/Chris Taylor
Standout Tracks: Vacancy/Faceless Angel/Take Me Back to the Summertime
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3DsVPs2X3o6HJOrioFo4lx?si=VQCJinvuTjGH84kEdg9_cw&dl_branch=1
Review:
“The highlights are almost too many to mention. ‘Lover Undiscovered’ is a sublime tongue-twister; ‘Change Your Mind’ is blessed with quiet assurance, while ‘Mist On The River’ is dominated by a sense of uneasiness that goes beyond words.
A double album in the old-fashioned sense, ‘Coral Island’ will no doubt work particularly well on vinyl. The songs are fused together in natural groupings, while the break between placing the stylus on a fresh side of vinyl allows the narrative to seep into the unconscious, before the music begins once more.
‘Arcade Hallucinations’ is an unsettling, emphatically creative piece of off kilter psychedelia, it’s rattling charity shop percussive noises truly setting you on edge. The introspective pairing of ‘Autumn Has Come’ and ‘End Of The Pier’ pull at the heartstrings, while ‘Golden Age’ is a late-career high.
Held together by narration by Ian Murray – James and Ian Skelly’s grandad – ‘Coral Island’ has a natural flow, one that holds your attention even at the record’s most sonically obtuse moments. And there are certainly moments of experimentation – as much as ‘Coral Island’ revels in plaintive guitar pop classicism, the band certainly enjoyed thinking outside the box. There are shades of Joe Meek’s experimentation at work throughout, with Liverpool’s Parr Street Studios being turned into a mania of pedals, horns, and other effects.
Closing with the beautiful pairing of ‘The Calico Girl’ and ‘The Last Entertainer’, ‘Coral Island’ is huge in scope and ambition, while also remaining staggeringly consistent. The bar is set high from the off, and they never fail to reach it. A lazy comparison: it’s as creative as ‘The White Album’ and as unified as ‘Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake’. A truly superb experience, it feels as though The Coral have painted their masterpiece – a one way ticket to ‘Coral Island’ is a truly an offer you can’t turn down” – CLASH
Choice Cut: Lover Undiscovered