If pop by design lacks substance and in form is just a temporary construct, as their career progresses The Coral seem now to be the opposite of pop. This is not you must understand in a corpse paint, Aphex-tinnitus or eight-minute drum solo kind of a way. Now more than 20 years on from the release of their eponymous debut album, the quintet however are taking up space in a different universe to both their contemporaries and those whom they’ve offered inspiration to since.
It’s a place listeners were first introduced to on Coral Island, a seaside town themed extravaganza that, as a modern rarity, offered more with each listen, a richness of grain and an evocative set of stories made for people who still began each day with side 1, track 1.
Sea of Mirrors remains on location, but the set this time is of a spaghetti western that never quite got finished. In musical terms the band continue to navigate a channel between somewhere between Nuggets-era garage rock, seventies AOR, Love and The Byrds, doing so with a clear affection on tracks like That’s Where She Belongs, Oceans Apart and Child of The Moon.
It’s companion, the physical only Holy Joe’s Coral Island Medicine Show, is by contrast a sonic rogue’s gallery where small towns and small lives collide, often with violent consequences. That said it’s never not compelling, particularly so on The Sinner and The Drifter’s Prayer, whilst the bittersweet Long Drive to The City offers a lighter relief of sorts.
Sea of Mirrors is the latest fascinating chapter in The Coral’s travelogue, another far flung place they’ve visited without ever leaving home. Masters of their own fate, with it they continue to prove that the most excitement comes not in reaching the destination, but while still being on the journey.
You can read a full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 
1 Comment
Comments are closed.