The Coral – Mercury Prize nominee’s reach for Eden

Notes from the darkness (last seat in the last row of Level 1, next to the toilets)

Nothing might be able to save music (industry) because it is beyond salvage but it is great joy witnessing what it can actually be. After a nostalgia loaded week – Bowie, Prince, Nice, Bryan Ferry, The Electric Prunes, Pere Ubu concerts in a row – some sense of hope is more than re-established by The Coral’s return visit.

After the disappointing loss of the Mercury Music Prize – nominated only a day after the albums was released, is that a record? – to Ms Dynamite is infuriating because her disc is as transitory as an exhale. The Coral’s debut ‘The Coral’ is it, music of so many reference points it is futile to name ‘em because it all ends up being stamped with the identity of this Mersey (beat) combo for the XXI century.

‘Spanish Main’, alike the album, starts the parade of songs; the images projected on the backdrop look faded, as if captured from the 1960s TV broadcast. These images – later metamorphosing into some dissolving psychedelic shapes – are the only show on offer; the band members hardly move but when you have such moving music, there is no neeeed! Although they should do something about their street-smart clothes, they look too much downdressed, in the Oasis, or The Stones Roses, or Happy Mondays’ way… (Such Brit-chic is passé, boys – vogue Ed.)

Not that it matters (just a fash-tip) in this glorious mixture of genres, a soundclash of styles, the poignant textures. ‘Calendars And Clocks’ is complex, multi-layered offering; ‘Simon Diamond’ makes one think of Genesis circa ‘Selling England By The Pound’ (1973). ‘Waiting For The Heartaches’ – guitar psyche-pop flow is hardly disturbed by singer James Skelly’s rhetoric; he’d bother to announce “Old party piece, ‘God Knows’.” Some of their songs are criminally succinct.

The current single ‘Dreaming Of You’ causes mass-mosh and even techs/roadies are dancing in the wings! It oughta be No. One instead of whatever crap has been hyped into the ‘place-of-shame’ as ‘Skeleton Key’ should have been – such a delightful freak-out for all Cap. Beefheart lovers. ‘Shadows Fall’… ‘’Goodbye’ contains a huge jam-out, taking one by the hand to the border of our universe and God’s ante-room…

No encore. Ovation.

Fifty-minute-statement. Pure treasure...