DISTANCE Inbetween, The Coral’s latest burst of quintessentially English psychedelia, harks back on an earlier age, that of the late Small Faces and the early Deep Purple, of the Moody Blues and Syd Barrett, bridging the gap between the classic three-minute single of the 1960s and the behemoth that was prog rock in the 1970s.
Whimsical, trippy lyrics, spooky harpsichord breaks and eerie echoes all combine to take us on a colour-splashed journey into the past, where Lewis Carroll meets Edgar Allan Poe in a moonlit graveyard. And, thrillingly, Distance Inbetween, the distance between fantasy and reality, is brilliant.
The Coral’s own journey has been a rocky one, but the driving, unnerving Connector, which opens the album, and the haunting title track, a swirling maelstrom of gorgeous music and poetry, indicate they are right back on form after a six-year hiatus.
Miss Fortune, which has been played relentlessly by BBC Six Radio, owes a massive debt to Nick Cave’s Nature Boy, but elsewhere the influences are subtler as the band, older and wiser, showcase their love of a golden era of English whimsy.
• The Coral play Fibbers in York on May 21.
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