The Coral - The Curse Of Love Album Review

Eight years is a long time in music and plenty of time for it to become dated, but that's not stopping The Coral from releasing their not-so-new album 'The Curse Of Love'. This "lost album" has finally risen from the ashes and James Skelly seems excited to unleash it upon us.

You have to admire The Coral for having the bottle to newly release something that was recorded eight years ago, but then again, somehow it feels like the perfect story for this band; these guys just seem to think outside of the box in everything they do and this is just the icing on the cake.

'The Curse of Love (Part 1)' and '(Part 2)' is a perfect and yet frustrating intervention that bookend the album. Why frustrating? Well, just as you get into the mad noises that come from this band the song just cuts dead; there's silence, and then prematurely into the next track. 'Wrapped in Blue' follows and The Coral show that they have found the happy medium between the chilled out and mad sounds coming from every direction. In this they seem to have found discipline in their music, but the problem there is that it was the lack of discipline and total madness that made The Coral so unique in the first place.

It's not often that I like an instrumental track on an album, but 'The Second Self' is great! It's like a journey into the creative minds of The Coral, something that you would expect to hear off a Beatles album; in short, fab.

'The Golden Bough' is a hint from the early days of The Coral and when you listen to this album you will sense that it is as if they took some of the best parts from their previous four albums and moulded it into this.

While it is great to get to hear this album, let's be honest: should it have been released eight years ago, maybe their career would have gone into more of an upward spiral instead of mediocre obscurity. With this you could say The Coral are back with a bang! Whatever the reason is behind the release of 'The Curse Of Love', it's just great to hear that quirky craziness again.

4/5

Mark Moore