Music: Coral boys are always safe bet to misbehave.

Byline: with Kate Mansey

THE Coral have been naughty boys For many bands getting their mugs on Top Of The Pops or CD:UK to promote their new album is a big accomplishment.

But The Coral do find it hard to behave themselves.

On last weekend's CD:UK guitarist and trumpeter Bill Ryder-Jones decided to mouth an expletive to the camera.

The word was cut, leaving a TV producer apparently very irate with them.

Oh well, worse things have happened in hotel rooms.

And The Coral - poised to release new album The Invisible Invasion on May 23 - were never going to be role model material.

As you read this they've left their Hoylake homes to tour Europe and will be racing between festivals - more of a visible invasion then.

Nick Power, organs and vocals, says: 'We hadn't even seen Bill do that but we just think it's quite funny that we are banned now forever.'

The new album received a battering in Q magazine, dismissing it as 'another jangly northern indie record'.

Nick says: 'We've had some good reviews so I was gutted by that - but it's wrong.

I know that record's good.

'We are an important band and because we're from the north they say that we're this or that.

'I think you get a stigma attached to you if you're from Liverpool or Manchester. We're a novelty orsomething.' He speaks about the records like they are members of the band: 'People have said this one is more mellow, but it's not - some of it is off its head.

'We rehearse so long before we go into the studio that the main problem is getting it to sound like our live shows.'

The record, their third proper album, was part recorded in Liverpool's Elevator studios and surpasses the flatter Magic & Medicine released in 2003, closely followed by the third pseudo album Nightfreak & The Sons Of Becker.

It takes you through the sunshine melody of psychedelic single In The Morning to the charming Late Afternoon. Opener She Sings The Mourning is dark and brooding with a velvety bass line and the record has ups and downs making it more mature than previous releases.

In the past five years they have produced so much - and frontman James Skelly is the eldest at just 24.

With an unstoppable ambition, nothing is enough for them. After a few months away they've come back with this record and want to continue.

Nick says: 'We always get advised against releasing albums so soon so it's not pressure from the label, it's us that's pushing for it.

'We're always writing - we know we'll never run out of songs.'

Now they're looking forward to flying out to Turkey for the Liverpool final - apart from Evertonian Bill - and after being inspired by sea shanties they want to stage a gig on a ferry across the Mersey.

Let's just hope they continue to misbehave. After all, a squeaky clean rock band is about as much use as a chocolate teapot

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Title Annotation:	Features
Publication:	Liverpool Echo (Liverpool, England)
Date:	May 13, 2005
Words:	501
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