Coral

Your average variety of hard tropical coral takes 100 years to grow one inch. It took the Coral considerably less time to come to the attention of the British press, who have bestowed their self-titled debut with the mantel of the best thing to come out that land in a month of fortnights. It is obvious to anyone familiar with the record that the Coral are in fact not the five rather bored looking post-teenage lads on the CD art. They instead must be well-aged post-modern psychedelic trippers who for the last decade have locked themselves in a sealed vault and immersed their aural capacities in a steady diet of Lee Perry, Captain Beefheart, King Crimson, Frank Zappa, and the entire Trojan Records catalogue. A plunder-phonic goulash of ’60s and ’70s influences (with David Clayton-Thomas singing), the Coral know a thing or too about how to rock, could teach Wide Mouth Mason the proper use for a Roland space echo and will probably leave you with one confused question after listening to this record: "What the hell just hit me?"