WZBC recommends UK group The Coral

England is always ahead of the United States in jumping all over good, back-to-the-basics rock and making it popular and cool before we even hear it. This was the case with The Strokes, White Stripes, and Hives. Now there seems to be a piggy-backing phenomenon of bands trying to ride the wave of retro rock-bands that are looking only for their own form of bubble gum pop success (without all that substance baggage).

So I was pretty excited when I picked up The Skeleton Key EP by The Coral (the UK's latest flavor of the week). I was hoping that it would be part of the aforementioned wave that can be blamed for the likes of The Vines so that I could write a nice and fun negative review. The Coral completely surpassed my low expectations and subsequently ruined my evil plot to write something that bordered on slander.

The Skeleton Key is both good and genuine. The Coral is retro as labeled, but not in the garage rock style that we've become accustomed to. Instead, The Coral hearkens back to '60s British R&B (in the vein of early Rolling Stones), a sound only really shared at the moment by Clinic. For four songs The Coral pulls this off nicely and with great range. The first two tracks are simply rocking, filled with grizzled vocals, twangy guitar, and an eerie harmonica.The third and fourth tracks then shift gears to a much more mellow and spacey tone, melodically swaying in and out of lush harmonies.

Unfortunately, the fifth and final track follows the old school British sound too faithfully and come off as painfully derivative of the chief forefathers of this genre, The Animals. While this song isn't at all original, they rip off the right band and do it well. The track, "Sheriff John Brown," brings this EP to a fitting close. It stays in tune with the second half of the EP with its deliberate story-telling style and would be the best track on The Skeleton Key if not for the fact that it mimics The Coral's influences.

The Skeleton Key gives you the impression that The Coral chose their name with care. The title of the EP brings to mind weird pirate imagery and the music finds a way to stay true to this. The often cheesy vocals confirm that this is exactly what The Coral is trying to convey, "I am shipwrecked on the rocks" is just a sampling of the lyrics that (thankfully) stop just short of "Arrre Matey." All of the tracks keep this motif; how The Coral is able to pull this off without sounding the least bit limited or repetitive is quite an accomplishment. So if you're a fan of pirate-rock revival (and who isn't), I recommend you check out The Skeleton Key... just don't forget to take a Dramamine.