Volcano and Heart

US Soaring debut album from Santa Barbara atmospheric pop outfit. "The art-rock majesty of The Coral Sea emerges breathtaking, it steals from your soul, unsurpassed in this part of the world." Well, The Santa Barbara Independent isn’t kidding either, The Coral Sea’s debut is a hypnotic and mellow dreamrock album that calls to mind classic albums by Bowie, Pink Floyd and The Beatles, with current comparisons ranging from Yo La Tengo’s melodic blue-streak zoom-pop to Radiohead’s impassioned layered vocal/guitar impressionism. Imagine a stratospherically skillful space-pop quartet with an entire string section behind it, and you'll be on their wavelength, but for me it all comes down to the voice. Frontman/founder Rey Villalobos’ vocals steal the show: a luminous, sometimes androgynous croon, a silvery warble, without a glimmer of pretension…and here my closest comparison of the moment is Mercury Rev’s Jonathan Donahue (but Rey’s voice is leagues richer and less dependent on effects) and Parasol’s very own Kevin Tihista (with a bunch more Thom Yorke than KT’s ever going to show us), especially in the lyrics and phrasing departments.