Sea Of Mirrors

The Coral

Released on 8/09/2023 by Run On Records
Main artists: The Coral
Genre: Alternative en Indie

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The Coral weren't really looking to make another album so soon after completing the epic Coral Island concept album, but when one of their favorite haunts, Parr Studios, was about to close down, they took advantage of the friendly surroundings to cut another record. Two, in fact. The more substantial of the pair, Sea of Mirrors, is a sepia-toned, string-filled, and melancholy imagined soundtrack for a vintage spaghetti Western starring Lee Hazlewood as the busted-up and bitter troubadour. Calling in the arrangement expertise of Sean O'Hagan of High Llamas fame, the band chose to outfit the songs in orchestral flourishes, vocal choruses, and Western-friendly banjos and acoustic guitars. It ends up being their most adult-sounding album yet; stately and nostalgically sad, it sheds all traces of psychedelia in favor of an almost-middle-of-the-road approach where the road is old and covered in sand, barely used, and caked in nostalgia. The elaborate ballads and misty melodies are tailor-made for James Skelly's voice, he's got pipes big enough to inhabit the songs like an aging gunfighter while at the same time hinting at the pain lurking beneath the hard-worn surface. The band proves just as adept at creating the perfect atmosphere, filling the sonic spectrum with galloping basslines, rippling percussion, jangling and twanging guitars, and the occasional dusty piano. When paired with the widescreen efforts of O'Hagan, they come up with a sound old Lee would have been proud to call his own. Certainly one that some wily filmmaker might have stuck in their movie to conjure up a dramatically melancholy mood. The title track or "Wild Bird" could have fit into Midnight Cowboy with their aching vocals, shimmering strings, and downcast feel. Other songs might have been good for moments where lovers pine for one another ("That's Where She Belongs"), the lead ponders where it all went wrong ("North Wind") or wanders the night in a trance-like state ("Dream River"). The combination of O'Hagan and the Coral is so perfect it's hard to believe it actually happened. Each of them brings out something intrinsically good in the other; the Coral are so resolutely earthbound that O'Hagan's additions could never veer too far toward the precious, and his fluttering arrangements give the group space to nimbly explore lighter, less earthbound territory. It's definitely not like anything else in their catalog, and it's pretty clear by now that the Coral could take on just about any kind of guitar-based music and make it fully their own. Deeply bruised, cinematic, and graceful Western music is no match for their skills, and Sea of Mirrors is another triumph for the band.

© Tim Sendra /TiVo

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Sea Of Mirrors

The Coral

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