When The Coral burst fully formed from James Skelly’s head in 2001, it was difficult not to be charmed. Their self-titled debut was patchy, certainly, but it had an abundance of ideas, a defiantly British eccentricity and a handful of irresistible tunes. Best of all was the band’s absurd youth – it seemed inevitable that they would progress, iron out those patches a little and take a step towards making something truly wonderful.
Only half true. Apart from last year’s irritating throwback mini album, The Coral have certainly become a slicker and more accomplished band, boasting an effortlessly melodic sound and an expert mastery of styles from blues to psychedelia. But truly wonderful? Apart from a couple of killer singles (notably 2002’s sublimely understated “Pass It On”) The Coral have become steadily less experimental and more conventional, prisoners of their tasteful record collections.
Which is why signing Portishead architects Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley to produce their third record was such a brilliant idea, theoretically opening up new sonic worlds and licensing a new spirit of experiment. Sadly, it doesn’t quite work out like that. Whilst the production is reliably clean and gleaming, and songs like “Cripples Crown” have a gloomy gothic atmosphere that may owe a little to Portishead, most of the songs here are just more of the same and no amount of production can change that.
Of course, The Coral are rarely less than charming, so sprightly pop like “So Long Ago” or the naggingly catchy “In The Morning” will never be entirely unwelcome. But much of the music sounds like exercises set by a rather blinkered music teacher, with “She Sings The Mourning” a credible stab at Morricone atmospherics, “Something Inside Of Me” the best Kinks song that neither The Kinks nor Blur ever wrote and “Arabian Nights” a rather silly stab at Doorsy prog rock.
There are some lovely moments, such as the shimmering lament of closer “Late Afternoon” or the lunging riff and swaggering harmonies of “Something Inside Of Me”, but the overall impression is of an album that you’d never be ashamed to own but wouldn’t necessarily feel the need to play all that often, either. It seems we may be waiting for The Coral’s masterpiece a little longer than we originally thought.
