Skeleton Key

Picture the scene if you will, you're sat in your parents' front room in Liverpool with the Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd rolling the spliffs, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention jamming in the corner, and The La's looking on in wondrous bemusement before joining in. Mad? Possibly, but that is the scene that rolls through the mind as The Coral's cdep comes to an end. A more disparate and yet strangely coherent collection of moods and styles you will not hear this year outside a supremely eclectic compilation.