The Coral

Emerging from a fog of spliff smoke in the early 2000s, Liverpool teenagers The Coral sounded distinctly out of step with the UK’s then musical landscape. The band had similar roots to fellow Love-loving Liverpudlians The La’s and Shack a decade previously, but delivered their own peculiar brand of cosmic psych rock with a level of oddball eccentricity far more at the Beefheart/ Zappa end of the ’60s scale. Among the many ideas crammed into their debut were frantic Cossack sea shanties (I Remember When), woozy dub (Shadows Fall), effortless Merseybeat pop (Goodbye), cackling pirate-themed ska (Skeleton Key) and one song about a man who, disillusioned with the modern world, turns himself into a plant (Simon Diamond).

Behind the wacky in-jokes and stylistic ADHD, however, lurked some serious musical chops, a crate-digger’s knowledge and love of the past and – crucially – an ear for a cracking chorus.