THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The wheels rattle into the thrilling unknown on The Coral’s first new music since 2018, landing the unsurpassed, metamorphic gonzo-pop five-piece in the company of crooks, sell-by-date candyfloss and plastic skeletons on the legendary Merseyside band’s vividly evocative 10th album (and first double album) Coral Island.
Squinting into the neon-lit penny arcades and draining an after-hours glass with the displaced and dispossessed once the power is pulled, The Coral’s latest caper concerns listeners with the light, shade, thrills and profound melancholy of coastal palaces packed with fun and fright. Both now and then, or perhaps never as fiction encroaches on reality, the feverous anticipation of a night amongst the screams, fights and romance of the fair become part of life on the newly built Coral Island.
Almost 19 years after the release of their celebrated, self-titled, Mercury Music Prize-nominated, platinum-certified debut in 2002 — a release that kickstarted a decade of classic singles, including Dreaming Of You, Pass It On, Don’t Think You’re The First and In The Morning, The Coral move into 2021 every bit as in thrall to the self-endowed gift of creative freedom as they were on day one. Of their nine albums to date, five have reached the Top 10 — including 2003’s chart-topping and gold-selling Magic and Medicine, which saw the band nominated for Best Group at the Brit Awards. Never anything other than wilfully idosyncratic and critically praised, the followup Invisible Invasion reached No. 3 in the U.K. Albums Chart and joins its predecessor in being certified gold.
Recorded in a sense of barely controlled copy-and-paste chaos at Parr Street Studios in Liverpool, Coral Island was written and performed by the multi-instrumentalist and multi-talented lineup of James Skelly, Ian Skelly, Nick Power, Paul Duffy and Paul Molloy plus a special guest.”
