IF The Coral were a football team they would be newly enthroned world champions Spain – that’s how good their fifth studio album is.
There were distinctive signs in the last effort, Roots & Echoes three years ago, that the Hoylake handlers of musical dreams were advancing towards the summit of their powers. That destination has been reached at Butterfly House. It’s baffling The Coral have not attracted more acclaim.
Consistently over the past decade they have produced a battery of bejewelled music, evidenced by last year’s greatest hits compilation. Butterfly House is beautiful. Like the aforementioned Spanish, The Coral weave the most intricate and beguiling of patterns.
Instrumentation, intonation and inspiration are pitch perfect and consummate craft has dispelled early impressions of the band as magpied pipers of jaunty Scouse shanties. There’s not a bum note, not a dud among a dozen outstanding songs.
The Coral play Leeds 02 Aacdemy on November 14. Box office: 0844 477 2000.
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