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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

The Coral - Butterfly House

The release of a greatest hits album is often the swan song for bands. So when The Coral brought out their singles collection around the same time that founder member and guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones quit two years ago, you would have been forgiven for thinking that was the last you’d hear from them. Happily though, nearly a decade after their first release and three years since their latest studio offering, the Liverpudlians are back.

Produced by John Leckie (Radiohead, The Stone Roses), Butterfly House is the sound of a band that has matured. There are a few trademark woozy psych-fests here, like North Parade which, after initially sounding like it’s going to burst into A Hard Day’s Night actually ends up being more like Erland & The Carnival, but generally the tone of this sixth album is much more tender. While, with this shift in tone, their very 60s-influenced psychedelic folk may have lost a little of its appealing impishness and weirdness, trying to reprise the sounds they were making when they were kids would have felt false. Okay, so there’s nothing as instantly thrilling and barmy as the likes of Dreaming Of You, but, then, The Coral are older and wiser now.

There might not be anything hugely attention-grabbing here, but Butterfly House is delightfully genial in its sentiment and, more so than anything, it proves that, while their peers steadily fall by the wayside, there is life left in The Coral yet. Their ear for a lovely, perky melody remains as strong as ever.

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