Review Summary: A tropical mishmash of Merseybeat and sixties rock that is just experimental enough to feel modern and fresh. The album is highlighted by a truly great track, Dreamin' of You.
Here is an example of a great debut album that went under my radar for a few years. So, just in case you missed them like I did, let me give you the rundown of the band and the album.
For starters: The Coral is an excellent psychedelic pop-rock band from Liverpool. (Remind you of anyone?)
I just listened to their self-titled debut, and it is a very solid, very complete album. It’s not quite hooky enough to enter my all-time favorites list, but it's a soothing and beautiful listen. The album has an unusual indie pop sheen — think OK Go but a bit more organic and with a surfer haircut.
An album can only be as good as its songs. The Coral has one pheneomenal song and several good ones. The cream of the album is Dreamin’ of You, which dabbles in ska and has the biggest melody on the album.
A lot of albums have one great song and a bunch of good ones. What, then, puts The Coral at a 4 instead of a 3? The timbre and musical diversity. The Coral deftly navigate a wide variety of styles that gives each song its own flavor, yet the album is rooted in a surf-edelic sound built on clever vocal harmonies.
The album is saved forgettability through this sound that permeates the entire album. It’s in the harmonies that could have been pulled straight from Pet Sounds, in the xylophones and caribbean instruments regularly experimented with, and in the hippie guitar jangle. Some songs sound like they could have been on an early- or mid-sixties heavy rock album like The Animals, others would have felt wrong on anything but a straight pop album, and still others could pass on an experimental album.
Ultimately this is Merseybeat for the 21st century but funky and tropical. It’s an inspired album, one of high order that has a sonic boldness far beyond what I expected from the debut of an indie pop band.
If you don’t have an interest in the whole album, you owe it to yourself to check out the best song on the album, Dreamin’ of You.
