The Coral, Butterfly House
The Coral: older, wiser, and comfortable as curators of their own retro-pop archive
On their emergence in 2001, The Coral's enthusiasm for skiffle, freakbeat and spliff-addled surrealism breathed new life into the world of psychedelic British pop. While older heads quickly cast them as heirs to a Merseyside bloodline that stretched back via the Stairs and the La's to the 23rd Turn Off, the Wirral sextet's youthful enthusiasm for a sepia-tinted past was as natural as it was infectious: The video for 2002 single "Goodbye" even boasted a video based on cult 1973 flick The Wicker Man.
Mentally scarred by the instant success of their debut album and its follow-up, Magic and Medicine (both Top 5 in the UK), the band — still barely into their 20s — retreated into a shell, releasing the experimental oddity Nightfreak and the Sons of Becker and experiencing growing pains which saw mercurial guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones depart prior to 2007's brooding Roots & Echoes, an album recorded at the studio of longtime fan Noel Gallagher.
Put it down to two years road-testing new material or the steadying influence of producer John Leckie (responsible for the Stone Roses debut and XTC's spoof psych outfit Dukes Of Statosphear), but their sixth album finds them recapturing some of the exuberance of their debut. Their sonic treasure chest remains largely the same (essentially the Yardbirds, Love and Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac), but a decade together has given the band a new cold-eyed ruthlessness. "She's Comin' Around" and "Two Faces" are finely tuned psych-pop nuggets, all shimmering guitars and clipped drums, while Morricone-esque opening "More Than a Lover" and a Byrds-inspired "Roving Jewel" suggest impressive musical muscles now lurk beneath their retro threads.
If vocalist James Skelly's pudding-bowl thatch exists as a striking visual reminder of the band's boyish beginnings, his lyrics suggest that, emotionally, he's undergone a dramatic metamorphosis. Gone entirely is the madcap surrealism of their debut (where, memorably Simon Diamond "swapped his legs for roots"). Instead, we get sober reflections on love and life, most notably on the title track and blistering six-minute finale "North Parade," a kaleidoscopic wig-out with lyrics cataloguing the hardships of life in the band's recession-hit hometown of Hoylake. No longer the youthful scamps at the back of pop's classroom, Butterfly House finds The Coral older, wiser and comfortable as curators of their own retro-pop archive.
