In the early 2000s, bands looking to reimagine guitar-based music found rich source material in ’60s sounds and styles. Case in point: On their 2002 self-titled debut album, Merseyside, England’s The Coral embraced both offbeat pub rock (“Dreaming of You”) and ’60s-inspired psychedelic sprawl (“Goodbye”). The band formed in the late ’90s around the nucleus of high school classmates bassist Paul Duffy, guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones, and a pair of brothers, drummer Ian Skelly and vocalist/songwriter James Skelly. The Coral built on the success of their debut with the retro-leaning Magic and Medicine, which reached No. 1 on the UK albums chart, and with inspired singles such as the 2005 twinkling garage-pop hit “In the Morning” (produced by Portishead’s Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley). Ryder-Jones left the band in 2008, but The Coral’s love of musical complexity and embrace of adventurous songwriting never wavered. Their 2018 album Move Through The Dawn boasted vibrant tempos and buoyant indie-pop grooves, and in 2021 the band released the double album Coral Island, an eclectic concept record about a fictional place where smart, well-wrought psychedelic rock dominates.
Hometown
Hoylake, Merseyside, England
Genre
Alternative
Similar to: The Coral
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