Track Listing

1. Spanish Main
2. I Remember When
3. Shadows Fall
4. Dreaming of You
5. Simon Diamond
6. Goodbye
7. Waiting for the Heartaches
8. Skeleton Key
9. Wild Fire
10. Bad Man
11. Calenders and Clocks

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3110 in Music
• Released on: 2002-07-29
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced
• Dimensions: .24 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
While the fiery rock & roll spirit of The La's Lee Mavers courses through their veins, the debut album by youthful Liverpudlian mystics the Coral proves they are far more than Merseybeat chancers. The opening "Spanish Main"--"We've set sail again! / We're heading for the Spanish Main!"--casts the sextet as marauding scally pirates, out to pillage musical history for any loot they can lay their hands on. Magnificently, it's possible to hear the influence of everything from Captain Beefheart to Miles Davis, from Spanish mariachi guitar to rambunctious Cossack dance rhythms surfacing between the tight, ragged grooves of "I Remember When" and "Shadows Fall". But the staggering thing about The Coral is that it's stuffed to bursting point with ideas, yet presents them all in such stark clarity. It's hard to pick an album highlight, but it's probably a toss-up between the curious, swooping fable of "Simon Diamond" and the unfettered insanity of "Skeleton Key", which finds frontman James Skelly croaking "Solid gold skeleton key / opens the most intricate lock / Brother roll another for me/ I am shipwrecked on the rocks!" as his bandmates caw like parrots in the background. The Coral are off on a totally mental trip. It would take a fool, however, to choose not to join them. --Louis Pattison

CD Description
Debut album from Liverpool six piece band who have backed former La's songwriter Lee Mavers at one of his rare live appearances. Features the singles 'Skeleton Key' and 'Shadows Fall'.

Customer Reviews

Lost and sea and loving it
Pirate indie-rockers. You heard me.

From the marauding opening guitar of Spanish Main (only lyric: "We'll set sail again, we're heading for the Spanish main!") to the jangly weird-out of Calendars and Clocks, The Coral is about as eclectic and silly as debuts can get. We have a ballad about a man turning into a tree (Simon-and-Garfunkel-ish Simon Diamond), a harmonica-filled masterpiece that recalls, at moments, Madness (Shadows Fall), something that resembles a Bond theme (Wildfire) and two enjoyable, ska-like singles that you'll have to make a conscious effort to avoid singing along to (Dreaming of You, Goodbye). The lyrics are weird, the music changes directions just when you least expect it (I Remember When suddenly bursts into Russian Polska - "Hi, hi, hi, hi!") and the barbershop-quartet vocals sound, as well as silly, pretty damned good.

Sure, it's incoherent and completely all over the place - the running theme seems to be that there isn't one - but that just makes this stuff listenable, fun, and happily surprising. And in a world of predictable music that you've heard before, surely surprises must be a good thing?

Set sail. You'll love it.

File Under ????
Fact: The Coral have released the most orignal album in ages.
Fact: The Coral write brilliant pop songs.
Suggestion: Buy this album if you haven't already.
Lauded for months by the NME as the next big things, The Coral have carved out a very unconventional niche for themselves by writing songs which seem fuelled by the most bizarre influences imaginable. Ancient sailing shanties, folk rhythms from around the world, but especially the UK?
Well, the best thing I could add to that is this. Underneath all that anti pop rhetoric lies some of the best pop tunes of the year. Highlights abound, there really is not one dud song on the album, from the hights of 'Goodbye' and 'Waiting for the Heartaches', to the haunting 'Shadows Fall', each track blends into the next with a seamless style which belies the fact that each stands alone as a potential classic.
This album really is that good. In fact I haven't stopped listening to it for days!
For once I can safely say, hats off to NME, in The Coral, they have discovered the UK's most special band in years.

A Refreshingly different debut
This is the album that may well give the British Indie Scene a much needed kick up the backside.

This debut album is crammed with ideas and although The Coral wear their influences on their sleeves (the Beatles, Captain Beefheart etc...), they always seem to interpret these influences into something modern and fresh.

There are many stand-out tracks on this album, but the singles "Dreaming of You" and "Shadows Fall" as well as "I Remember When" are my personal favourites. Where the album loses a star for me is the inclusion of "Simon Diamond", which is a little dreary - perhaps a Sergeant Pepper style 'concept song' was a little ambitious for a debut album. Also, the experience is over a little too quickly, the whole album just edging over the 40 minute mark - and that's with a 'secret' track added on a few minutes after the album proper.

However, in all, this is an excellent debut and one which has not been out of my CD player since I bought it! The lads from Liverpool have come up trumps and I look forward to hearing more great music from them in the future!