The Coral: Magic And Medicine

The Coral's self-titled debut album was enjoyably eclectic, but it's still exciting to hear the Liverpool sextet narrow to one predominant sound for album number two. Early on, Magic And Medicine settles into a hushed, spooky mode, beginning with "In The Forest," a song constructed primarily of roller-rink organ beneath James Skelly's deep-echo voice, with traces of plucked bass, twangy guitar, cymbal splashes, and slow-stomp percussion interludes. The song that follows, "Don't Think You're The First," is about as uptempo as Magic And Medicine gets, and it's still a steady-galloping mysterioso ballad with a western flavor. The only other especially bouncy tracks are the stinging "Bill McCai" and the bubbling "Pass It On," but the careful quietude elsewhere isn't a drawback. The Coral drew from the beat-craziness of early British ska and the freaky psychedelia of mid-'60s garage soul, but at times, it seemed more imitative than inventive. Magic And Medicine's draggy Bob Dylan homage "Talkin' Gypsy Market Blues" shows the limitation of using old rock as window dressing, while the bulk of the disc presents a better-integrated fusion of varied hypnotic pop sounds. It's also adventurous within a strict framework: The Coral breaks abruptly into a jazzy freak-out in the middle of "Milkwood Blues," and on the Zombies-like "Careless Hands," it launches into a brief country-funk coda. The six-minute "Confessions Of A.D.D.D." concludes the album decisively with more Zombies slink, more folky breaks, and an extended rock-out finale. Even one of the more thieving tracks, "Liezah" (a folky song that recalls late-period Simon & Garfunkel), maintains a distinct Coral-ness, thanks to Skelly's vocal resonance and the band's relaxed, joyful musicianship. The U.S. edition of Magic And Medicine throws in the band's Nightfreak And The Sons Of Becker, a quickie basement exercise that The Coral claims qualifies as its third album, while its label and managers claim it doesn't. The unfocused, off-the-cuff recording session must have been liberating after the painstaking craft of Magic And Medicine (and it produced at least one fine track, "Sorrow Or The Song"), but The Coral should find it more rewarding to tighten the ship back up for album number four.