The Coral in a land Alice hasn’t wandered

Gap between greatness and awfulness is widening. And there is more of the latter, proportionally speaking, than in the past. No empirical support here, just a feeling, checking the charts and radio playlists. Apart from the previous week, when the singles chart had The Coral’s ‘Pass It On’ at No.5. Oh joy! The song originates on the band’s second album, ‘Magic And Medicine’.

The new disc appears precisely a year after the debut and it is another unusual thing this band practices: artists are told they need to tour an album for 18 months. Also, their debut came out just in time to be nominated for the Mercury Music Prize but this year’s release has missed the cut-off date. The Coral don’t need validation by some panel of mature ‘experts’ although they should have won it last year. Probably this one, as well as the next few… One feels they know what they are doing and how well they are doing it. Precious under the ‘red, white and bland’ flag of commercialism.

In no little measure they are brilliant and there is no similar band in the land, or other continents. They are product of music loving, exploratory spirits and imagination the size of K2. The album sounds a little less eclectic than ‘The Coral’ – no polka, for instance: not that they’ve started making less exciting songs, there is still as much diversity as a year ago but it is more disciplined, more determined and a fair bit more accessible. Which singer James Skelly readily acknowledged and commented that “this is the most commercial the band will ever get.”

‘Magic and Medicine’ still sounds like Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band were playing the sharper Merseybeat-era tunes. ‘In The Forest’ glides in on an organ motif for Skelly to paint a melancholy-intoned melody that only slightly picks tempo up; acoustic folk songs are ‘Liezah’ and ‘Pass It On’, ‘Talkin’ Gypsy Market Blues’ is a country-rocker. Perfect songs for masses are ‘Don’t Think You’re The First’ and ‘Bill McCai’, an upbeat pop rocker to join their most popular song to date, ‘Dreaming Of You’.

‘Eskimo Lament’ ends like a New Orleans funereal march, ‘All Of Our Love’ gets jazzy in parts, part dreamy and haunting, ‘Confessions Of A.D.D.D.’ starts like a soundtrack to a 1960s spy-flick until it gets disturbed halfway to morph into something completely different. Oh, the beauty of a surprise, the change, the journey to a conclusion forever refusing a linear path. Pretty peculiar, experimental, noisy, magical, cosmic, out-there, delightful – ferry to heaven!

If I were to meet a touristy alien I’d be ashamed of pop/rock culture we’ve vulgar’d. With very few notable exceptions, The Coral headlining. Aesthetics of music have been compromised over the years but the ‘invention’ of the schism of realTVy stars had killed any pretension of quality. The Coral-ists are concerned with timelessness, seeking beauty a-plenty, this sextet of Scousers.

They remind me of the British tennis ace (ain’t this an oxymoron?) Tim Henman: hope of a nation rests upon shoulders of one; well, the difference being that The Coral – deliver! ‘Magic And Medicine’ is 41 minutes of odd pop odes.

9/10

Tour dates 2003:

16 November – Northumbria University, Newcastle
17 November – Academy, Glasgow
18 November – Rock City, Nottingham
21 November – Brixton Academy, London
22 November – Academy, Bristol
24 November – Dome, Brighton
25 November – Guilchall, Portsmouth
26 November – Apollo, Manchester
28 November – University, Leeds
29 November – Octagon, Sheffield
30 November – Academy, Birmingham