The Coral talk new ‘secret’ album ‘388’: ‘If you’re not going to be big, you better be interesting’
The act of making an album is the reason why an artist should want to wake up in the morning, but becoming a salesman for several months to flog said album is also an accepted part of the job remit. Yet The Coral‘s latest record, 388, shows that it doesn’t necessarily need to be that way.
With no prior notice to fans, 388 arrived on streaming platforms today and has been available to buy from record stores throughout the UK since May 8th.
There’s been no music videos released to build up anticipation, no slaving away to get noticed on social media algorithms, in-store performances to game a chart position or anything else that is widely accepted as the norm for every new album in 2026.
Refreshingly, The Coral, who are now on their 13th studio album, have opted out of the system, which feels like a radical act, even if it wasn’t designed to be so.
For frontman James Skelly, one of the benefits of releasing an album in this fashion is that he doesn’t have to spend endless weeks having the same conversation over and over again while on the promotional trail. Thankfully, he did find the time to speak with Far Out, though, and spilt the beans about The Coral’s analogue approach to the digital age.
The story for 388 dates back to 2024. The Coral had got off the back of a hectic year that saw them release the double concept album, Sea of Mirrors and Holy Joe’s Coral Island Medicine Show, with no plans to make another record.
They embarked upon a lengthy, intimate tour, visiting towns off the trodden path, with the show consisting of a Q&A with fans about their first album, as well as an acoustic set, while also working on a documentary behind-the-scenes around a similar time.
Unexpectedly, their younger selves served as the perfect inspiration, with Skelly confessing, “In a way, I think I kind of learned something from those kids who we were that we’d forgotten.”
Now, thanks to the documentary, Skelly has a renewed perspective on The Coral’s early days, which he didn’t always view through rose-tinted spectacles, revealing, “I was always proud that we did what we did, but there was always a nagging thing, ‘If we could have done more’, or ‘If we just done this’, or ‘Maybe if I hadn’t done that’, and then I looked back when I watched, and it was perfect.”
388 isn’t The Coral attempting to rehash their debut record, but for Skelly, it was recapturing that same fearless mindset that can only be born out of youth. “There was like a tunnel vision we had, and for this release, we’ve tried to have that same attitude. I don’t give a fuck what anyone else’s opinion is on it. This is what’s happening,” he explains.
Artistically, the no-fucks given approach, which relates to everything from leaving mistakes on the record to their method of releasing the album, has been liberating for Skelly, even though he laughs, “Maybe not for everyone else, but for me.”
Skelly wanted the record to be unfiltered rather than refined, recalling working with Liam Bailey on an unreleased song, which gave him the kick up the arse to start writing direct lyrics again, sharing, “It started with, ‘Astonish me with love’. And I was like, I would change that, I might sing it, but I would change it, and it would be wrong to change it. Me and him are a similar age, and he’s still got that direct on the nose thing.”
With that session in mind, Skelly chose to go with “no twisting and no turning” with his lyrics, revealing, “I didn’t overthink or change anything. It was just what came out.”
Musically, there was no overthinking 388 either; they had two weeks in the studio and at the end of it, “what was done was done”, which was a move inspired by the records that mean the most to Skelly. He highlights, “The vital early Motown stuff, Lee Scratch Perry stuff, or Northern Soul tunes, they probably recorded it in about three hours, bang done. That’s the mix.”
As it was recorded live, with no room for going back and fixing any tiny mistakes, there are blemishes across 388, but ones full of character, giving a personable human touch at a time when artists are seeking to deliver polished perfection with the help of AI.
Their refusal to sweat the small stuff is also aided by the fact that they are more than 20 years into their journey, with Skelly bluntly adding of his perspective, “If you’re not going to be big, which we’re not, you better at least try and be interesting,” and after referencing 2021’s Coral Island that featured his grandad as the narrator, he said of their lasting ethos, “We just try and make everything extreme in some way or another.”
Typically, if a band is on their 13th album, they are jaded and making a record for the wrong reasons, which Skelly vows never to do, sharing, “There is a ceiling. I know we’re not going to be massive, and not for everyone. I found this idea interesting, that’s why I did it. I wouldn’t just make an album for the sake of it.”
The ceiling that Skelly mentions with self-awareness is also why they are releasing the album with no big fanfare. He knows that it’ll make its way to their most loyal fans who have been there through thick and thin, while also conceding that no amount of promotion is going to make 388 the album that sees him swap the Wirral for a mansion in Malibu.
For Skelly, the idea of a Coral fan accidentally discovering the record over the last two weeks was a motivating factor for this method, while also wanting to support the medium of physical record sales, adding, “These shops are still the heart and soul of music.”
He’s also not losing sleep over the possibility that his lack of promotion may stop the occasional person from discovering the record: “We’re not that big anyway, so I don’t really give a fuck, we’ve done enough albums.”
Making an album isn’t a life-or-death situation, and it’s time that more artists took a leaf out of The Coral’s book with 388. Not every album needs to be the most personal collection of songs ever written, which takes the artist to the brink of their own sanity to mine out of their brain, nor do they need to whore themselves out to an algorithm to chart at sixth rather than 16th.
Most vitally, 388 is an album that embraces human connection above all else, as Skelly eloquently puts it while discussing the threat of AI, “You can’t replace a feeling, a friendship and camaraderie in the air in a room together, I think you might be able to even paint it exactly the same, but you would feel it in your gut, maybe AI can never do that.”
388 is out now through Run on Records and can be purchased here.
