The Coral 'The Invisible Invasion' album

Deltasonic/Columbia Records will release The Invisible Invasion, the eagerly-awaited new album from the critically-acclaimed UK band The Coral, on Tuesday, August 30. North American fans of The Coral will get a first taste of the group's new album in June 2005 when the band crosses the Atlantic for a select series of headlining club dates (see itinerary following). The Coral will return to the states in late August for a full-length North American tour.

"In The Morning," the first single from The Invisible Invasion to be released in the UK, has already reached the #1 slot on the UK airplay charts while the UK music press has been unanimous in its praise of the album:

"The Coral's self-created world seems reinvigorated," raved Mojo in a four-star review. "They have never achieved such coherence on an album before."

"Bands and scenes will come and go," observed the NME, "but The Coral are ones to cherish."

"The Invisible Invasion is magnificent and sends The Coral soaring up as one of Britain's most brilliantly inventive acts," opined The Fly while Word heralded the album's "…set of addictive and mature songs that confirms (The Coral's) status as a national treasure."

"It's highly encouraging to know that there is a band who can reach their fourth release," wrote Clash, "and still be pushing boundaries and exceeding their own quality watermark."

Biography

“The opposition don’t stand a chance” – NME

Hoylake, Merseyside. Where’s that? It’s “One of those villages where everyone knows everyone, but no one really knows anyone”. It’s a non-descript seaside town on England’s west coast – the anti-Blackpool, if you will – where the less than extravagant yearly highlight is Lifeboat Day.

Most importantly it’s home to The Coral. Seven youthful troubadours; aged between 22 and 24, who collectively form one of the most exciting British bands in years. Still, after a quick listen through their albums The Coral (2002), Magic & Medicine (2003) and their most recent The Invisible Invasion (2005) you'd be forgiven for mistaking them as The OK Corral. They choose styles and specialize where no one else would even think to tread. Minor key ballads infused with the spirit of the Wild West under moonlit bayou, for example. You’d be impossibly pushed to find a comparison amongst their peers, a band so young and yet so progressive – they’ve both eyes on the future and a finger in every musical pie.

Indeed for some so early of years and with four albums under their belt (if you include mini-album Night Freak & The Sons Of Becker), The Coral are prodigiously aware. Like some wheeling cultural kaleidoscope they pick up everything from the Origin Of The Species and Hemingway to Huckleberry Finn - eclectic yet accessible. Everything they come into contact with is assimilated, cogitated and brought to be in the overall perspective. Marley. The Beach Boys. The Doors. Treasure Island. The American Civil War. BMX bikes. You name it - they dig it. As James himself says, “Inspiration is absolutely everywhere”.

So how did they get from there to here? Ten years ago the band formed from a group of mates at Hillbre High, Hoylake. James and Ian took guitarist-to-be Lee home for tea, convincing their mother that he was “one of them Kosovan refugees”, picking up Paul, Nick, Bill and John along the way. They learned some old favorites (Oasis, mainly) and wrote some new ones, about pirates and sheriffs and men who look like plants. They had a go at secondary education but felt it wasn’t right; it sapped expressive energies and couldn’t be accommodated. Says James: “We all tried college, we all left. It wasn’t very exciting; it wasn’t very good. It didn’t seem like they actually wanted to teach you”. And why be taught when you can learn? Why shackle yourself to one thing when you can try a hundred?

And so they went, retiring to a disused shelter by the sea to practice – and smoke - to their hearts’ content. They worked part time to cover the costs of their endeavors, knocking out demos in between. It was Alan Wills, once the heart of Shack’s beat machine, who picked up The Coral and launched Deltasonic from their capable backs after being impressed by a mere rehearsal. They stuck out a debut EP in summer 2001, Shadows Fall, whose title track featured Russian flavored folk intersected by a mad ragtime wig-out.

In a nutshell, for once here’s a band who make use of their different interests in every possible way – endeavoring to capture an energy, rather than using it as a mere template. Which is so refreshingly unlike many of their elder contemporaries, so many new and recent guitar bands you’d care to mention, and will surely stand them in good stead for years and albums to come.

“The way I think of making music is that it has no rules. If it sounds good, it is good” – James

And man, is that a good sound……

Members

James Skelly - guitar / vocals - age 24
Ian Skelly - drums / percussion - age 22
Nick Power - organ / vocals - age 23
Bill Ryder-Jones - guitar / trumpet - age 22
Lee Southall - guitar / vocals - age 22
Paul Duffy - bass / sax - age 22
John Duffy – percussion – age 22

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Tracklisting

The Coral - The Invisible Invasion