THE CORAL

Are The Coral the most important Liverpool band of the last 30 years?

Their latest album, The 388, which in a typical Coral move dropped with no fanfare and zero advance promotion last week – at the very least serves as a reminder of how special they really are.

It’s an intriguing release which at times sounds like nothing they have done before but is at the same time a record that could only be made by the Heswall mavericks.

The timing of the album is perfect too as its release coincides with the premiere on UK TV of the  brilliant documentary Dreaming of You on Amazon.

The doc directed by long time Coral collaborator James Slater is right up there  with my favourite ever music docs. It beautifully tells the story of how these weird young  lads from the Wirral came together and almost despite themselves became one of the biggest bands of the early 90s.

The film finishes neatly with around the time of their legendary Midsummer Night’s Scream gig in June 2003 which took place in a marquee in New Brighton. It wasn’t quite on the same level as The Stone Roses and Spike Island but as anyone who was there will remember it was a special, special day with The Coral at their exhuberant  youthful best supported by the likes of The Zutons and Libertines.

The documentary perfectly captures a bunch of kids who despite having  a hit album, Top of The Pops appearances, and a US tour behind them remained  resolutely a gang of weirdos from the Wirral who didn’t play the industry game. In a lovely moment the band explain why despite pressure from the record company they refused to go to the glamorous industry event when they were nominated for the  prestigious Mercury prize. They quite simply couldn’t be arsed which kind of sums them up.

So almost a quarter of a century  on from where that films end we have a much older but still magically  contrary Coral releasing another stunning album completely out of the blue.
Even though the band are still playing live pretty regularly I’m not sure that many of us Coral lovers expected an album full of new material. In recent years we have had the brilliantly quirky Coral Island and Sea of Mirrors and  it’s limited release twin Holy Joe’s Medicine Show accompanying it for which we are all very grateful.

Indeed the new album seems to have been produced on a whim, apparently recorded over two weeks on a vintage Tascam 388 tape machine that the album is named after. The last few albums you could probably view broadly as  concept records but 388 sounds like a band just having fun and remembering why they started making music originally. There’s reggae, ska and a bit of everything else they have ever listened to in there but somehow it manages to be the most genuine of Coral records in years.

30years on from when they first formed The Coral have made a record that’s fresher and more fun than it has any right to be. Dip in and enjoy The Coral at their very best.

Kev McManus