Butterfly House

Diehard fans of The Coral’s early, eccentric phase may be put off by the overt pop moves of the band’s sixth album, but that’s a bit like dismissing Their Satanic Majesties Request for not being bluesy enough. (Don’t laugh, there are people who do.) In fact, the entirety of The Coral’s career has been a gradual but unmistakable evolutionary process, from skewed this-is-your-band-on-drugs freakiness to melodic, mysterious Doors/Love territory, and finally, pastoral harmony-pop that owes as much to the early ‘70s as the '60s. (The Butterfly House has already earned more than one comparison to iconic soft-rock trio America.) Some might point to the departure of founding guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones as a reason for the sanding off of The Coral’s rougher edges, but axeman's subsequent solo material hasn't exactly been avant-garde either. And while the heavenly vocal harmonies, hooky choruses, and jangly mix of acoustic and electric picking move The Coral definitively out of the weird-uncle-music bin at last, there are still plenty of moments where a dark undercurrent can be discerned, subtly suggesting that the sunshine-and-flowers world the band has built on The Butterfly House may not be quite as innocent as it seems.