The Coral – Butterfly House

With Oasis deceased, another sixties-indebted Brit act has obligingly assumed the proffering of perpetual ‘best since their debut’ pre-release promises. The Coral clearly operate on a significantly different scale – especially eight years after that self-titled success, when hype-stores are long diminished and their continuation goes unnoticed by many erstwhile fans. Fortunately, they differ from the Gallaghers in various other ways: Butterfly House is indeed the Merseyside outfit’s finest release since their first.

The title track augments its breezy melody with vaguely eerie whispers, Green Is The Colour combines a Donovan-esque chorus with Spector-echoing verses to superb retro effect, and the slight Falling All Around You is perhaps the prettiest three minutes they’ve penned thus far. And these aren’t even necessarily the best tracks, the quintet's understated, John Leckie (Ride, Radiohead, Stone Roses) produced sixth album housing no hits-in-waiting but generating its success from an overall sense of harmony. [Chris Buckle]