The Coral Album: “Invisible Invasion [Japan Bonus Track]”

Nobody can accuse the Coral of not evolving. With every release, the Merseyside band has revamped their sound and made it all seem new, whether it's rough B-sides, rollicking pirate rock or pastoral pop-rock. So what have they gotten up to now?

In their fourth album in as many years -- if you count the halfway-album "Nightfreak and the Songs of Becker" -- they change it yet again. This time, there's no pirate rock or bizarro pop songs. Instead, "The Invisible Invasion" relies on dark art-rock with a twisted psychedelica vibe, with hints of what they have done before, but never with deja vu.

It opens with a wonderfully sinister, twangy opener, which quickly falls into the dark, catchy rock of "She Sings the Mourning" and "Cripples Crown." James Skelly intones eerily over the music, "Blood red love knot, temptress eyes/cuts right through the family times," which add a strangely supernatural edge to the music. These two are probably the strongest and most polished songs on here.

There's a brief and ill-advised foray into folk-rock, which the Coral quickly veers away from. Good thing, too -- it's too cheery and sunny for this record, as are one or two other catchy little songs. So then it's back to undulating keyboard, crunchy riffs and hammering drums. Not to mention those ghostly "woo woo" synths that pop up every few minutes.

"Invisible Invasion" is very catchy. Not in a bad way -- instead, it sounds like a cheery pop singer in a haunted house, who is about to be overcome by the ghosts. It borders on kitsch in places; having Skelly moaning "cooooome hooooommme" over a twisting riff sounds silly. But with Skelly's pleasantly smooth voice, the Coral actually makes it sound sinister.

And the Coral stretches further into experimentation with "Arabian Sand," a Pink-Floydian song that is only four minutes long, but feels at least three times as long. It's rough, ragged and brims over with sound. And at the end of it, I'm still not sure whether it's a disaster or pure brilliance. One thing is sure: It'll get your heart rate up as it accelerates to a climax.

How do you judge an album by a band that does nothing twice? Just take it for what it is -- and in "Invisible Invasion's" case, it's a rough, ghostly, distorted mass of catchy rock'n'roll.