KEN MICALLEF

Sia

KEN MICALLEF — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:44:55 GMT

Some People Have REAL Problems | Hear Music
Australian vocalist Sia Furler has one of the greatest potty mouths in alt-rock.

Natalie Walker

KEN MICALLEF — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:53:43 GMT

Urban Angel | Quango
It’s all soothing, but Walker’s never too sweet.

Dan Wilson

KEN MICALLEF — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:24:53 GMT

Free Life | American/Sony
It’s as if he were trying to impress mom while keeping the kids at bay.

Serj Tankian

KEN MICALLEF — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 19:21:04 GMT

Elect the Dead | Warner Bros.
Playing almost all the instruments and freed from the Goliath prog-metal of System of a Down, he gives full release to his inner clown parade.

Swede stuff

KEN MICALLEF — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 21:53:05 GMT

Dungen deliver another potent dose of psych-rock
To most rock fans, psychedelic means Jimi Hendrix and Arthur’s Lee’s Love, or Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” and Frigid Pink’s “House of the Rising Sun.”

A HEAD FULL OF HIP-HOP?: Gustav Ejstes (second from right) has been listening to Madvillain, MF Doom, Marley Marl, Pete Rock.

To most rock fans, psychedelic means Jimi Hendrix and Arthur’s Lee’s Love, or Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” and Frigid Pink’s “House of the Rising Sun.” Cream’s Disraeli Gears, Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma and 1966’s The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators are other bellwethers. Whatever your psychedelic flavor, one thing’s for sure: it’s an English or American pursuit. Right? Well, beyond myopic Anglo-American-isms, psychedelia also birthed a Euro component in the current home of blitzkrieg pop trends, Sweden.

“There was a great [psychedelic] underground in Sweden in the ’70s,” says Gustav Ejstes, whose band, Dungen, draw from a wealth of seemingly ancient Swede-psych sources. Pugh Rogefeldt, Älgarnas Trädgård, Samla Mammas Manna, Kebnekaise, Bo Hansson, and International Harvester were underground psychedelic bands in ’60s and ’70s Sweden — their sound lives on in Dungen.

“One of the best Swedish bands was called Baby Grandmothers,” Ejstes says over the phone from Sweden. “They were an amazing trio that existed for a year or two. And I like ’60s heavy-metal bands from all over the world that no one knows about. A band from Argentina called Aguaturbia. Like Black Sabbath in Argentina. Amazing records. But now I just have my head full of hip-hop.”

Hip-hop? Dungen’s 2005 album, Ta Det Lugnt (“Take It Easy”), was anything but, and its hotly tipped follow-up on Kemado, Tio Bitar (“Ten Pieces”), extends Gustav Ejstes’s space-shattering sounds. Again handling drums, flute, keyboards, guitar, bass, and violin, Ejstes is joined only by guitarist Reine Fiske. Mining a rich vein somewhere between Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland and Santana’s Caravanserai with hints of the Small Faces and Swedish folk, Tio Bitar recalls past masters in a way that’s more than mere retro navel gazing. In the same way that jazz drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts recalls Elvin Jones, or Derek Trucks summons Duane Allman, Dungen distills psychedelia to its essence, time-traveling from the past to the future and back again.

“When it comes to music and music listening,” Ejstes says, “I pick the good parts that I like, then I learn the codes and the language and don’t concentrate so much on the culture and the scene and the lifestyle. I play music.”

True believers

KEN MICALLEF — Tue, 08 May 2007 22:44:05 GMT

The Kooks keep it classic
Luke Pritchard may look a bit like a shaggy dog with his lips curled in a mock Jagger pout. But it’s no pose.

VIDEO: The Kooks, "Ooh La"

Luke Pritchard may look a bit like a shaggy dog with his lips curled in a mock Jagger pout. But it’s no pose. The 23-year-old singer/guitarist is a walking rock-and-roll obsessive. “When you put on a Stones or Doors record, you’re there,” he mumbles excitedly from his home in Brighton, England, in a manic jumble of references. “You’re in their studio. Songs like ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,’ that is rock and roll to me. It’s got that Jagger swagger. And ‘I’m So Tired,’ that is genius. And ‘Happiness Is a Warm Gun,’ it’s that whole vibe. Recently I am really getting into Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. There is one song, ‘Almost Cut My Hair,’ that is so grooving. And I got Buffalo Springfield Again; it is such an eclectic record. ‘Mr. Soul’ is a basic R&B/soul track, then they go into country music and harmonies. I can listen to that for days. It’s beautiful music.”

Pritchard’s band the Kooks, whose late 2006 debut charted multiple UK hit singles and landed on several year-end best-of lists, believe in musical mysticism and in that old-time religion as expressed in pre-digital, straight-to-tape recording. It’s what inspired the visceral Inside In/Inside Out (Astralwerks), an album that’s still making waves as they embark on a US tour that brings them to the Paradise this Sunday. (The disc’s current single, “Ooh La,” is iTunes’ “Single of the Week.”)

Originally a group of college chums, the Kooks — Pritchard, Hugh Harris (guitar), Max Rafferty (bass), and Paul Gerred (drums) — may be a Britpop band in name, but their organic rock is nothing like that of fawned-over peers like Bloc Party and Kaiser Chiefs. They’ve locked into that rock-and-roll element that goes straight to the gut. Beneath the rough surface of Inside In/Inside Out is the essence of classic ’60s rock.

“It’s the way we recorded the album — entirely to tape,” Pritchard says. “When you record four people in a room, you capture something underneath the music. . . . It is quite hard to get hold of tape today. I think Jack White bought it all up. But when you record to CD, there are many processes involved in getting the sound, from the mic to the recording desk to the computer to CD. When you record to tape, what you are playing is being burned directly onto a piece of magnetic tape. It’s not a computer or digital representation of your performance. The way computers record, they basically take snapshots of the sound wave, so you don’t actually get the whole picture. They take a snapshot every .001 seconds, so you miss out tiny little bits of the music. That stuff matters — you can feel it.”

Coheed & Cambria

KEN MICALLEF — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 12:08:57 GMT

The Last Supper: Live at the Hammerstein Ballroom | Columbia
Fans of Coheed and Cambria’s fantastical hippie metal are given to proclamations like “They made their own style, no other band has ever been like them” and “Their shows are a life-changing experience.”

Guitar heroes too

KEN MICALLEF — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 22:30:21 GMT

The Slip fall into the rock
“People simply can’t describe our music,” says drummer Andrew Barr of the Boston-based trio the Slip as he looks back over the band’s past decade together. The Slip, "Children of December" (mp3)

OUTSIDERS: On Eisenhower, these Berklee College dropouts have toned down the jams in favor of classic ’70s rock.

“People simply can’t describe our music,” says drummer Andrew Barr of the Boston-based trio the Slip as he looks back over the band’s past decade together. “ ‘Nice’ is not the best adjective to use, but my friends who listen to death metal and classical just can’t put a finger on what we do.”

Not that dodging the fickle finger of classification hasn’t prevented the Slip — Barr, his brother Brad Barr on guitar/vocals, and bassist Marc Friedman — from racking up a club following in Boston and beyond. (Yep, they’re very big in Japan.) Fortified by the release of their eighth album, Eisenhower (Bar/None), and what’s fast becoming a hit track (“Even Rats”) on Sony PlayStation 2’s Guitar Hero II, this band of Berklee College dropouts have accomplished quite a bit with very little outside help, mainly on the live circuit. Now, for the first time, people outside the jam-band scene are paying attention to a Slip studio recording.

“This record was highly improvisational,” Brad says, speaking from New York’s Housing Works bookstore in SoHo. “We had an improv approach in the studio, like, ‘Let’s just try these sounds out. Let’s grab that thing or shake that thing.’ And though there is a place for jazz solos and we always do that as a band, now we keep it at home. On the record we found a way to convey something that feels more complete and direct.”

Indeed, their previous albums have offered playful doses of improv mixed with potent pop melodies, but Eisenhower is their most cohesive and satisfying. By toning down the jams, the Slip, who play Avalon this Saturday with My Morning Jacket, come closer to classic ’70s rock than they ever have before. Soaring melodies, flashes of overheated instrumental excursions, and a warm, retro feel in the production all combine to create a much more accessible Slip.

Brad agrees. “This time we paid a lot more attention to what it is we love about records: the way that they sound. Before we would just go along with any engineer who wanted to put mics on every drum. Here, we paid attention to getting room sounds, some space and depth and dimension.”

Rising son

KEN MICALLEF — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 00:08:43 GMT

Sean Lennon grows into himself
“My whole life is a strict schedule of working on art and music,” Sean Lennon says while signing posters for a fan give-away at the New York offices of Capitol Records.

LITERATE LAD: “Nabokov has influenced my writing as much as Jimi Hendrix has.”

“My whole life is a strict schedule of working on art and music,” Sean Lennon says while signing posters for a fan give-away at the New York offices of Capitol Records. “It is not strict, but I play every day. It is about the work in the end. That is what separates good artists from great artists. A good artist might make a good record, but to make a better record you have to keep working and working. That is where will and discipline comes in. My dad was incredibly motivated and super ambitious. I wish I had half the will that guy had.”

Although he has recorded two solo albums — the new Friendly Fire and 1998’s Into the Sun — and released a disc of remixes and outtakes (1999’s Half Horse Half Musician, all Capitol/EMI) and collaborated with musicians as varied as John Zorn, Ryan Adams, and Thurston Moore, people still see Sean Lennon as a rich kid slumming with similarly endowed rock-star offspring (Harper Simon) and Hollywood types (Bijou Phillips, Lindsay Lohan) using Manhattan as a playground for their experiments in film, music, and scene shaping. Granted, Sean bears the weight of the Lennon mantle, and that may account for the low profile he’s maintained. But it does take confidence to return eight years after your debut album to appear with an 11-piece band on Late Night with David Letterman, as he did last month, performing the melancholy Friendly Fire single “Dead Meat.” Lennon is certainly aware of his special status. But he hasn’t let it mess him up.

“Most of the people I hang out with are not famous,” he asserts, decked out in a chocolate-brown velour suit and Beatle boots. “But it is only the famous friends that you hear about. You hang out with a famous person and everyone thinks that is your only friend. So that idea is completely misleading.”

He adds that he’s been far from idle. “My record is not the product of somebody who has been sitting around all his life. Not to sound arrogant, but I work very hard at what I do. And I don’t want to be lumped into a group of progeny of rock stars or people that are brought up with wealth. I don’t feel that I am related to them in any way other than by proximity. I have been working as a professional musician since I was 17. I’ve toured the world 10 times. People don’t realize that because I am not a famous musician — I am a famous son of a legend. But I am not famous as a musician, which is fine because the circles I run in are very alternative.”

The Handsome Family

KEN MICALLEF — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 14:57:20 GMT

Last Days of Wonder | Carrot Top
Attentive indiephiles and alt-country fans will soon realize that lyrics about tying a captain to a tree and trying hard not to hear his screams could only be the observations of Albuquerque’s husband-and-wife team the Handsome Family.

Cutting Loose

KEN MICALLEF — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 01:19:06 GMT

Nelly Furtado gets promiscuous with Timbaland
Her new third album, Loose , celebrates the emancipation of Nelly Furtado.

WORLDLY WOMAN: “I’m embracing the idea of being an entertainer a lot more now,” says Furtado. “And I feel really sexy as a woman and in control of my life.”

Performing her #1 single “Promiscuous” on Saturday Night Live, Nelly Furtado shook and shuddered her pint-sized body like an electro-shocked puppet. Up there with her was producer/rapper Timbaland, who glided across the stage fronting a monster-sized hip-hop band. Nelly sprang her limbs with spastic intent, shaking her arms like a wet bird, thrusting her hips in Shakira-like gyrations, and generally fulfilling her role as an “empowered woman.”

The 2000 multi-platinum smash Whoa, Nelly! (DreamWorks) put the Portuguese-bred British Columbian singer on the map with “I’m like a Bird” (and its accompanying mud-romping video), but her new third album, Loose (Geffen), celebrates the emancipation of Nelly Furtado. This 29-year-old musical chameleon is an astute global pop star, whether she’s crooning ballads with Latin superstar Juanes (“Te Busques”), swinging sambas with Michael Buble (2005’s “Quando, Quando, Quando”), collaborating with Missy Elliott (“Get Ur Freak On”), penning an acoustic Christmas album (it’ll include a cover of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”), or organizing an artists’ collective with her new hero, Timothy “Timbaland” Mosley. “Timbaland really brought out the more primal and impulsive side of me,” she says from her LA management offices. “And also my more sexual side. I really let go in the studio. Somebody said that Loose is very hedonistic, and I don’t argue with that. It was made in the spirit of fun and leisure.”

Recorded in Miami by Timbaland (and producers Lester Mendez and Rick Nowels) after initial sessions with Nellie Hooper, Scott Storch, and the Neptunes’ Pharrell Williams largely failed, Loose finds Furtado following the lead of other white females who’ve assumed hip-hop’s mass-culture mantle to generate record sales well beyond their previous releases. For Nelly, crossing over came as easily as getting a tan. “I was in Miami and on vacation besides being in the studio. I was with my daughter Nevis hanging out in the sun. It was a leisurely sort of experience, and I let my guard down. I felt very comfortable in my own skin. As a young Latin or Portuguese woman and as someone who speaks Spanish, I felt incredibly at home and welcome in Miami. Over the past couple years I have gone through some changes, giving birth and becoming a mother; now I feel really in control of my life and really empowered. I feel really good about myself. A natural sexiness comes out of that.”

Hip-pop redux

KEN MICALLEF — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 21:37:38 GMT

Hip-hopped-up hits from Deborah Harry to Gwen Stefani
Nelly Furtado’s not the first pop diva to embark on a lucrative hip-hop detour.

HOLLABACK GIRL: Gwen Stefani's irresistible mash-up.

Nelly Furtado’s not the first pop diva to embark on a lucrative hip-hop detour. Neither is there anything new about white singers appropriating black culture and music. But in the era of sampling and the DJ remix, reinterpretations and collaborations take on new meaning. One hand washes the other, whether it’s Deborah Harry exposing Blondie’s new-wave audience to the sounds of New York street rap two decades ago in “Rapture” or Gwen Stefani hiring the best of West and East Coast hip-hop production talent for her 2004 solo albumLove, Angel, Music, Baby (Interscope) and its spinoff “Hollaback Girl.” Hip-hop dictates practically every mainstream single these days, and often in the most subtle of ways. Boom-bap beats, sampling, and an entire production æsthetic have been adopted from hip-hop by rock, R&B, and even country artists. So don’t be surprised if that next Loretta Lynn single sounds oddly like OutKast. Here’s a little history of the game . . .

Blondie , “Rapture” | It’s 1981. Charles and Lady Di just got married, new president Ronald Reagan trades arms for hostages, MTV debuts on cable, and Blondie are part of a music revolution that will be felt for decades to come. Over chiming church bells, chicken-scratch guitar, and a polka-dot bass-and-drum beat, Harry sings a honeydew intro before launching into a nimble rap about “Fab Five Freddie, Flash is cool, the man from Mars, eating cars, ‘and you don’t stop,’ he shoots you dead, and he eats your head, face to face, cheek to cheek.”

Mariah Carey , “Fantasy” | Building on a sample of the Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love,” dynamo pop vocalist Mariah Carey proved she was prescient back in the mid ’90s with “Fantasy” (from her sixth album, Daydream ) and its follow-up remix by Wu Tang Clan’s now deceased Ol’ Dirty Bastard. Mariah’s vocals and the bubblegummy Tom Tom sample drive the single; Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s odd rantings take the remix to the hip-hop masses.

Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine | The controversy over Apple’s 2005 album began when the brooding alt-rock diva ditched savvy pop producer Jon Brion for the tempered hip-hop styles of Mike Elizondo (50 Cent, Eminem). Not that the album is hip-hop by a long shot. But in subtle ways — a bracing beat here, a slapping sample there, a more up-front piano sound — you know Apple is onto something good. And Extraordinary Machine turned out to be a critical fave that’s given her career a new lease on life.

Family matters

KEN MICALLEF — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:11:26 GMT

Teddy Thompson takes after the ’rents
“I wouldn’t really say that my music is introverted and sad,” Teddy Thompson says on the road from a Chicago venue.

“I wouldn’t really say that my music is introverted and sad,” Teddy Thompson says on the road from a Chicago venue. The 30-year-old heir to British songwriting tradition hesitates to confirm that his latest, Separate Ways (Verve Forecast), is glum or downcast. “I am not sure if that is quite true. The subject matter can be a little sad and also quite bitter and barbed, but I don’t think it is too wussy. I would argue against that.”

Like father and mother, like son: Teddy Thompson, who headlines the Paradise this Saturday, April 1, appears to have inherited his parents’ knack for matching impeccable songcraft (Richard Thompson) with darkly sweet and resonant vocals (Richard’s ex-wife and former partner in song, Linda Thompson). Dropped from Virgin after the release of his 2000 debut, he had it in mind to prove he belongs in the family business, and Separate Ways does confirm him as an intrepid old-school folk-rock composer of substantial gifts. The tortured title track, the pungent “I Should Get Up,” and the caustic country-rock tirade “That’s Enough Out of You” are all buoyed by his meticulous inner dialogue. And like his father, he can be equally acerbic and humorous.

“I feel that there is a bit of a lack of craft these days,” he says when the topic of contemporary songwriting comes up. “A lot of people make records without remembering to write the songs first. There is a big mess of just crappy songs out there.”

That’s not a difficult position to defend. So Thompson has allied himself with that thread of ’70s singer-songwriters for whom putting thoughts to paper in poetic fashion was as much the goal as penning luscious melodies. “I have always been enamored of the song itself — often more than the performance side of it. That is the most important thing — the thing that is going to survive. I take great care with that and great pride in trying to write good songs. That is all it really comes down to. Plenty of people have written great songs in their 20s, but maybe we just forget that now because there are so few.”

Rae of light

KEN MICALLEF — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 16:22:45 GMT

England's next big export?
Touted as the second coming of Erykah Badu and Billie Holiday by the London press, Corinne Bailey Rae is a twentysomething singer whose luxurious, lazy phrasing and sweet tone are closer to Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues .

Force of nature

KEN MICALLEF — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 14:56:24 GMT

KT Tunstall takes the world by storm
Tunstall aspires to be “a tomboy who can sing pretty if she wants to but has a really kick-ass, gnarly band.”

When Virgin released Kate “KT” Tunstall’s Eye to the Telescope in Great Britain last year, the then 29-year-old songstress looked forward to “playing to six or seven people at local Scottish coffee shops.” At least, that’s what she recalls thinking when I reach her in Minneapolis on a tour that’ll bring her to the Paradise this Friday, March 3. Her biggest fear, she says, was that she’d come off like Phoebe in Friends, dishing out daft songs like “Smelly Cat” to bored customers just looking for a caffeine fix. But as fate unfolded, multi-platinum rapper Nas unwittingly gave KT her moment to shine, and KT Tunstall, pop phenom, was born

As Tunstall tells it, “I got a spot on a coveted TV show called Later . . . with Jools Holland. It’s the Holy Grail for British musicians. I had been playing clarinet and hitting a box with a stick at the time in a friend’s punk band. Then I get this call saying, ‘You have to come back to London because Nas has pulled out and they want you to do the spot.’ ‘I don’t have to rap my song do I?’, I asked. Anyway, that turned out to be my defining moment. I did Later with Jackson Browne, Anita Baker, and the Cure, and I played my first single, ‘Black Horse and the Cherry Tree.’ Afterwards, there was an on-line vote for best performance and I won 50 percent of the vote. It didn’t make sense. I got hundreds and hundreds of e-mails the next day. This song went mad, people just really connected with it.”

Suddenly Tunstall was the name to drop throughout Britain — particularly in her Scottish home town of Fife. Her singles stormed the charts. Later’s live version of “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” landed at #28 on the British charts. The more atmospheric “Other Side of the World” rose to #13. And Tunstall’s playful take on poetic Patti Smith, “Suddenly I See,” captured the #12 spot. By the end of last year, a fourth single, the æthereal reverie “Under the Weather,” had made it to #39, her fourth to hit the Top 40, and Eye to the Telescope was the best-selling UK album by a female artist. Not bad for an artist who thought she was washed up before 30.

Steely man

KEN MICALLEF — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 17:40:39 GMT

Donald Fagen takes a solo shot
For a rock band who wrote songs about prostitutes, Eastern gurus, pedophilia, heroin, niece lust, Charlie Parker, and a post-apocalyptic world, Steely Dan have always had something akin to the last laugh.

Please note: the Donald Fagen show at the Opera House has been rescheduled to March 11.

For a rock band who wrote songs about prostitutes, Eastern gurus, pedophilia, heroin, niece lust, Charlie Parker, and a post-apocalyptic world, Steely Dan have always had something akin to the last laugh. The duo of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker just have a knack for pulling the cultural wool over the eyes of music fans (some of whom think Steely Dan is a guy, not a Naked Lunch invention of William S. Burroughs) by cloaking inside jokes and cryptic asides in supremely shiny jazz pop that’s moved millions of units.

“I’ve always thought that a little bit of sugar makes the medicine go down easier,” says Donald Fagen from Warner Bros.’ NYC offices on the eve of a tour that brings him to the Opera House next Thursday, March 9. A third Fagen solo album, Morph the Cat, is due from Reprise on March 14. It’s chock full of the urbane musicianship, streamlined melodies, and cryptic lyrics that have made him a hero to those who like a little subversive sophistication with their soul-jazz-rock fusions.

“I use to read MAD magazine when I was a kid,” Fagen explains. “It had a lot of bite. MAD was saying something that always seemed very true to me, like advertising is the enemy because it’s all lies. So, subconsciously, Walter and I were using a sort of avant-garde technique of shocking the bourgeoisie, of frightening them into seeing something new or revealing something to them. It was a Trojan-horse technique to get your message across. We were brought up with that kind of satire, MAD and Lenny Bruce. Madison Avenue was the enemy, and we had to figure out a way to fight it.”

Steely Dan may not sell as many albums as they did in their ’70s heyday, but they did take home the 2000 Album of the Year Grammy for Two Against Nature (Reprise). And somebody’s clearly been buying up a lot of old Steely Dan vinyl, because artists as diverse as MF Doom, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Audio Bullys, Super Furry Animals, De La Soul, 3rd Bass, Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz, and Tone-Loc have lifted liberal samples from the duo’s ultra-plush grooves. The Trojan horse is alive and well.

Mozez

KEN MICALLEF — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 03:24:00 GMT

SO STILL | Apace
To the electronica-lite of Zero 7’s 2001 debut, Simple Things , Jamaican-born Mozez brought hot buttered soul and Marvin Gaye assurance, the former church singer wrenching real soul out of a pure digital frieze.

Sergio Mendes

KEN MICALLEF — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 16:50:49 GMT

TIMELESS | Concord/Picante
Better known for packaging ’60s samba and bossa nova into stylized, radio-ready novelties for the US market than for breaking any new ground, venerable piano wiz Sergio Mendes enlists the cream of contempo hip-pop/R&B (the Roots, John Legend, Q-Tip, Justin Timberlake) for this comeback album.

Liverpool's latest

KEN MICALLEF — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 19:55:06 GMT

The overlooked brilliance of the Coral
Last year, though word barely reached the States, the Liverpool scene came back to life, with the Zutons, the Stands, and the Coral leading the resurgence.

Last year, though word barely reached the States, the Liverpool scene came back to life, with the Zutons, the Stands, and the Coral leading the resurgence. The first two of those bands reflected the jumble of sounds and styles that have passed through the rough and tumble port of the North Britain city. Who Killed the Zutons? (Sony), dumped a Spanish galleon’s worth of musical nuggets into 13 playfully energetic songs buoyed by bolting rhythms, tooting saxophone, and brash rock-and-roll nerve. Drawing from similar waters, but with a darker, early-’60s British R&B flavor, the Coral had, over the course of five albums, developed a mysterious and exotic aura, with their Zombies-meet-the-Animals update of forlorn sea chanteys, sci-fi effects, bizarre rhythms, moping ballads, and dry Liverpudlian wit. And, when it was released last year, The Invisible Invasion (Deltasonic/Sony) seemed poised to gain a foothold for the band in the US. They seemed more focused than in the past, and the disc offered dense songs immersed in moody (and at times manic) Merseyside reflections, as well as a straightforward pop single ("In the Morning") and a pair of psychedelic excursions ("She Sings the Mourning" and "The Operator").

"That strangeness is from where we live," explains singer-guitarist James Skelly, whose thick Scouse sounds like gravel mixed with honey over the phone from his hometown. "Hoylake is a seaside village with no tourists. It is just an empty town across the Mersey from Liverpool. In the winter it can get spooky. You can hear the sails on all the boats rustling in the wind. They are all things that make me want to write songs. It is like thinking of an old lantern, or some object like that and writing a song about it. Even the Moors near Hoylake will make me want to write a song."

Producer and former Lightning Seed Paul Hemmings, who first emerged as a champion of hometown heroes Echo and the Bunnymen in the ’80s, has been chronicling the town’s legacy with the three-disc-and-counting Liverpool Cult Classics Unearthed (Viper). The CDs feature lost bands like The La’s and the Teardrop Explodes as well as lesser-knowns like Tramp Attack, a still functioning band that once included the Zutons’ Dave McCabe.