Sea shanty rock from across the pond

The Coral

Skeleton Key EP

Deltasonic

The Coral has…

The Coral

Skeleton Key EP

Deltasonic

The Coral has come to the forefront most likely as a result of the recent rash of garage rock, but the band is in fact the revival movement’s antithesis. The group’s music has all the gaudiness of a wild night at a burlesque house, yet takes an on folky, nautical themes with a rare apocalyptic bite.

The Coral are not hapless ’60s rip-offs like their contemporaries, but instead use some of the period’s best elements to create something all their own. The band melds absurd Syd Barret-era Pink Floyd lyrics with a multitude of genres, including psychedelia and R’B.

The six-member band hails from a small town 15 minutes outside Liverpool, England. Fresh from high school, guitarist/vocalist James Skelly is the oldest member, at age 21. Former Shack drummer Alan Wills helped the band form its own label, Deltasonic, as a division of Sony. The Coral also toured during the ’90s with fellow U.K. bands The Charlatans and Oasis, and has released a number of EPs and a self-titled LP.

The 5-track EP, Skeleton Key, released in April, is a preview of The Coral’s forthcoming spring 2003 album. The title track smacks the listener around with Zappaesque wiry guitar and throaty Captain Beefheart vocals. Skelly fiercely belts, “Solid bone skeleton key/ opens the most intricate locks/ … I am shipwrecked on the rocks!”

The record digresses from this first track, not in quality but in tempo, as each track becomes a bit slower and revolutionarily different from the last. The Coral also don’t allot any more than seven minutes a track on this record to get the job done, though more typically, the tracks almost reach four minutes.

The second track, “The Oldest Path,” plays along sinisterly, with Skelly singing about graves, kings and queens to the eerie organ one might hear at Halloween. The next track, “God Knows,” is equally haunting with cymbal crashes and a chorus of voices and debase beats.

“Darkness” is a beautiful lullaby tinged with horns and harmonica, while the last track, “Sheriff John Brown,” takes on the story of abolitionist martyr John Brown with an organ and vocals poignantly reminiscent of The Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun.”

Since the members of The Coral are less about attitude and image, and more about their dense, inventive sound, they are more suited to listening than to performance. But, they are still a band not to be ignored, as their music certainly warrants a show or two, and clamors through the speaker for your attention.