Wednesday 18 November 2009

The Coral

A few years ago I went to V Festival here in Staffordshire. I can't recall all too much about it, bands etc. I do recall seeing the non Brody Dalle element of The Distillers. They weren't as pretty as the Brody Dalle element. I did see The Coral though and in all honesty it is 40 minutes of my life which I will never get back. They could play alright, trouble was that they played 20 minute jazz breakouts of their song. I recall I wondered aloud, "if I wanted this shit, I would go to Glastonbury".
Todays commute CD is The Corals debut, The Coral. Its not quite "if I wanted this shit, I would go to Glastonbury", its more the radio edit.
The Coral are hugely influenced by bands of the very late 60's, The Chocolate Watch Band being the most obvious, that San Francisco sound clearly had a huge effect on the Wirral, the chiming guitars, the beefheartesque interludes. But its a bit forced to be honest. It shouts ooh get me, I have smoked stuff, listen, thats me noodling, thats cos I'm HIGH on the druqs!!!!!1!!!!, you cant appreciate it, cos you aint high!
I wasn't high, I was driving, but the closest I get to getting high is taking ALL of the wrapper off my Magic Tree New Car Scent. I tell you it makes your head swim.
This album is my wife's she really liked The Coral, at least until that V festival and all the New Car Scent in the world wouldnt be enough to make them enjoyable.
This album isnt as bad as their live performance though, it presents the hit(s) Dreaming of You, Goodbye and Skeleton Key in their glory and the odd other track that isnt massively irritating. Its just that it gets on my wick after a while, its no better than Oasis trying to emulate people much much better than them that came before them, and doing it so badly.
I know bo diddley of course and the NME rates this as the 21st best album of the noughties, one of us is wrong. 2 out of 10.



Skeleton Key by The Coral

2 comments:

  1. I have two complaints, with the most serious being the taking of Bo Diddley's name in vain, which is punishable by stern looks in my house. The second, rather more trivial point, is that I saw The Coral in that little place above a pub in Wolverhampton, and there wasn't any noodling, and they blew my socks off. Their version of Get Up Stand Up at the end was so good that I was astonished at their age. They looked like they would have the wheels off yer bike. They looked and acted like a gang, and I thought they were great.

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  2. A festival brings out the demon in people, Lisa reminded me that we also saw Killing Joke that day, dreadful stuff. However, on the day, The Coral were placed in the top 5 worst bands that I have ever seen, easily. In The Little Civic (recently moved by the way, as has Birmingham Academy) they may have pulled out all the stops to entertain the 30 somethings with Get Up Stand Up (we’re mad!!!! We do the drugs!!!! Honest, listen here is a bob marley song!!!! Tarquin here has a poster of Bob Marley, with a SPLIFF!!!!!) but they did and do nothing for me. On the day though, The Distillers gave a dreadful performance, another day they were amongst the best bands I have ever seen.

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