Let The Music Play

The Coral, the Wirral psychedelicists who have releasing records since their late teenage years in the early 00s are back with their thirteenth album, a nine song album called 388 (named after the Tascam 388 tape recorder they made the album on and also the type used by Lee Scratch Perry at Black Ark). The Lee Perry reference is apt because the first single- Let The Music Play- is a smokey, fuzzy skank, a nod of the pork pie hat to the rocksteady singles coming out of Jamaica in the 60s and to the tunes the band heard at a Wirral Youth club in the 90s. 

Let The Music Play is a joy, an echo drenched rocksteady rhythm and some high pitched harmonies, James Skelley opening the song with the lines,'Play that song again/ The one we used to smoke to/ When we were young'. There are wobbly horns, brushed drums all very natural and easy going. Music made by music lovers.  

The album follows in that feel by all accounts- I haven't heard it yet and it's currently a physical only release but on the basis of Let The Music Play it's gone straight onto my post- payday list of records to buy. 

The last couple of Coral albums have been concept albums- 2021's Coral Island and 2023's Sea Of Mirrors- and both blended cosmic scouse psychedelia with country and folk. Faceless Angel was the first single from Coral Island, Bo Diddley in West Kirby. 

Faceless Angel