The Coral are an English rock band formed in 1996 in Merseyside. The band first emerged during the early 2000s and found success with their debut album The Coral (2002) and follow up Magic and Medicine (2003). Their self-titled debut album was nominated for the 2002 Mercury Music Prize and later voted the fourth best album of the year by NME Magazine. Hailed as the first English band of the "guitar group revival", the band's first release was the single "Shadows Fall" (2001), which was followed by The Oldest Path EP (2001) and Skeleton Key EP (2002).
Their eponymous debut album, released in 2002, reached number five on the UK Albums Chart and was nominated for the Mercury Prize the day after its release. A successful tour and festival slots followed along with the singles "Goodbye" reaching number twenty-one in the UK Singles Chart and "Dreaming of You" reaching number thirteen. They recorded Magic and Medicine in 2003, which reached number one on the UK Albums Chart and garnered critical praise.
The album was largely made up of dreamlike acoustic ballads rather than the aggressive psychedelia of their debut. They followed the release with British, European, American and Japanese tours and a one-off festival Midsummer Night's Scream. The support for this event included a line up of up-and-coming bands, such as The Libertines, The Zutons and The Thrills. In 2004 they began recording The Invisible Invasion, with Portishead's Adrian Utley and Geoff Barrow as producers. On its 2005 release, The Invisible Invasion entered the UK Album Chart at number 3.
The band soon released "In the Morning" which reached number six and "Something Inside of Me" which reached number forty-one on the UK Singles Chart. The Coral toured with Arctic Monkeys during their 2007 summer festival gigs, releasing the single "Who's Gonna Find Me" on 30 July 2007 followed by the album Roots & Echoes on 6 August 2007. The band enlisted the help of Matt Potter for percussion and jazz flute on the album. In contrast to their frenetic early material, this album was a much more laid-back affair, and displayed a new-found maturity to the band's songwriting. In the years that followed, the band released a string of further albums, including Butterfly House, The Curse of Love and Distance Inbetween.
