388

Despite losing founding whizzkid guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones after 2007’s Roots & Echoes, The Coral have been enjoying something of a creative rebirth in recent years, beginning with 2021’s conceptual double Coral Island. Initially secretly snuck into record shops on vinyl and named after the Tascam tape recorder it was made on, 388 sees them indulge their love of the reggae, dub and early rock’n’roll records the group initially bonded over as teenagers in the Wirral, outside Liverpool. “Play that song again, you know the one,” sings frontman James Skelly on opening track Let The Music Play’s Studio One-styled skank, “the one we used to smoke to when we were young,” and a warm, spliff-softened sense of nostalgia hangs over the likes of You And Me (And The Beautiful Sea)’s acoustic doo-wop. Looking back to the music and friendship that made them, it might be their best record since Ryder-Jones’ exit.