The Coral - The Invisible Invasion

Nobody can accuse the Coral of not evolving. With every release, the Merseyside band has revamped its sound and made it all seem new, whether it's rough b-sides, rollicking pirate rock or pastoral pop. So what have they gotten up to now?

On The Coral's fourth album in as many years--if you count the halfway-album Nightfreak and the Songs of Becker--they change tunes yet again. This time, there's no pirate or bizarro pop. Instead, The Invisible Invasion relies on dark art-rock with a twisted psychedelica vibe, with hints of what they have done before, but never with deja vu.

Invasion opens with a wonderfully sinister, twangy opener which quickly falls into the dark, catchy rock of "She Sings the Mourning" and "Cripples Crown." James Skelly intones eerily over the music, "Blood red love knot/temptress eyes/cuts right through the family times," adding a strangely supernatural edge. These two are probably the strongest and most polished songs on the album.

There's a brief and ill-advised foray into folk-rock, which the Coral quickly moves away from. Good thing, too--it's too cheery and sunny for this record, as are one or two other catchy little songs. Then it's back to undulating keyboard, crunchy riffs and hammering drums. Not to mention those ghostly "woo woo" synths that pop up every few minutes.

Invasion is very catchy, a cheery pop singer trapped in a haunted house, optimistic, and about to be overcome by the ghosts. It borders on kitsch in places. Moaning "cooooome hooooommme" over a twisting riff should just sound silly, but with Skelly's pleasantly smooth voice, the Coral actually makes it sound sinister.

The band stretches further into experimentation with "Arabian Sand," a Pink-Floydian song only four minutes long, but feeling at least three times as long. It's rough, ragged and brims over with sound. And at the end of it, I'm still not sure whether it's a disaster or pure brilliance. Maybe both. One thing is sure: It'll get your heart rate up as it accelerates to a climax.

How do you judge an album by a band that does nothing twice? Just take it for what it is--and in the case of Invisible Invasion, it's a rough, ghostly, distorted mess of catchy rock'n'roll.

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