The Coral

Skeleton Key
The Oldest Path
I Remember When
Dreaming of You
Don’t think you’re the first
Milkwood Blues
Pass it on
Precious Eyes
Run Run
The Box

Fuck somehow left off skeleton key. Bye bye Bill McCai ha ha

This a great thread, JP. It's inspired me to go back to The Coral. I lost interest not long after Roots & Echoes if I recall. I think I might've spent some time with Butterfly House, or at least liked the singles from it? Anyway, yeah, this thread has served as a reminder into how good The Coral actually are/were, so I'm going to listen to all of the latter albums and share some thoughts on them in this thread. It means I am now juggling 3 musical projects with very limited time:

1. Listening to and reviewing (or sharing my thoughts on) The Coral's later stuff
2. Same for Hello Whirled but doing the full back catalogue, same as mahoney, whose already albums ahead of me
3. Working on the follow-up to my acclaimed debut album, FINALLY, which is available for streaming and download on the Bat Chain Records Bandcamp

I've always seen the first three albums of a piece, Coral mk.1 in a sense. All produced by Broudie in a short space of time, and though the majority of the songs were written by James Skelly, evidently a more democratic process in terms of arrangements and what not; The debut and M&M always felt very much like two sides of the same coin, with Nightfreaks being the bastard love child of both. I'm sure they had some of the songs on M&M when the debut was recorded and intentionally held them back. Add to those three albums all the great b-sides from that era and you have a great body of work for such a short space of time.

I did properly revisit The Invisible Invasion last year and was pleasantly surprised how much more I enjoyed it in hindsight having sort of cast it aside years ago as a patchy album with a handful of great songs, though, it's still an obvious step down from the first three (if anything it did inspire Portishead's 'Third' record) and then Roots & Echoes was a pleasant enough, but pretty safe follow up.

After that, I lost interest, Bill leaving for good, coupled with the blandness of Butterfly House was enough for me, though I've always had those early records in rotation and have always felt they stood the test of time.

I tried the new record, and, though I certainly don't dislike it, it's just that same one paced acoustic strum alongs that Skelly can toss off between shits and I have no desire to revisit it, but I'm happy for them that this one seems to have done well.

They had Pass it On in the very early days. I remember an early version on that demo tape that I think Mr David shared on here back in the day.

Fuck, I forgot how good some of their early bsides are. Follow the Sun is a monster. Loving Sweet Sue too.

Ah yeah, I remember that early demo tape David turtleed. I think I still have it in an old hard drive, if anybody is interested.

btw I gave Coral Island a listen while I was driving and it's a nice record, extremely well crafted, even pretty at times, but I totally agree with Kev, it's soooooo one dimensional, it's just a long acoustic strum and all the songs sound the same. Even the voice, it's so soft! It's as if the album was intended to be performed around a campfire, which is not bad per se and wouldn't be bad if it were a one-off, but they've been doing this style consistently for years...
This was a band who could rip a Yardbirds' fuzz riff in the middle of an organ solo or release a single based on an old Russian marching beat, they were the epitome of 'variety' and now you can barely tell one song from another. Also, three guitarists in the band and there's hardly any electric guitar on the album...

i felt exactly the same on first listen. something about the songs hooked me in though and then the whole concept really grabbed me.

Been listening a bit to Move Through The Dawn. Hard to believe this is the same band who put out stuff like their debut, and Magic & Medicine. It's just so safe. I mean, it's pleasant enough, and quite enjoyable for the most part, but I just find it mental how they used to be weird and wonderful and odd, and now they sound like this. Totally twists my melon. Some of the tracks on here sound like Ocean Colour Scene FFS. Surely that's not a sound they have aspirations for?

Suppose it's no coincidence that their sound changed quite significantly after Bill Ryder-Jones left the band.

I wonder if you could cherry-pick enough songs from the last 5 records to make one DECENT album that is not a snoozefest

I sometimes wonder of Bill had THAT much influence on the band, given he was the youngest of the bunch. What I’d imagine is when they were young they were writing together whilst drinking and smoking causing more experimental ideas to come through. As years go on the songs are written on an acoustic and when they go into the studio they don’t have a great deal of time and to flesh out arrangements and stick to the structure of the demo/acoustic tune

Plus it's not like his solo career (as much as you might like it) has been full of electricity and mindblowing turns

Aye, good points tbf mates.

I have to chuckle at all of the top 10 song lists, because as much as I love them, the coral are in the absolute top level of my 'bands I love who I could not name 10 songs by if you held a gun to my head' list, along with ron sexsmith, the charlatans and anything by van morrison post-1977. The songs all sound the same.

Except 'spanish main', obvs.

Wow, I knew one day I'd find someone who likes Ron Sexsmith. He's an artist I always see promotional stuff for but don't think I've ever heard. Plus he looks a bit like Krburg, if krburg had done a bit of crack.

I enjoy his work quite a bit, but for whatever reason, he releases a new album every two years, I listen to it, enjoy it immensely and then immediately forget it ever existed. Seen him live a few times, and it’s the same thing.

(Oddly, I spoke to him for 10 minutes a few years ago at a gaz coombes show in Toronto before i realized it was him.)

He also did a song with ray Davies when I saw him in Toronto years back and got him to play ‘misfits’ which was a pleasant surprise.