The Coral have revealed that their upcoming double-album Coral Island will include spoken-word contributions from Ian Murray – grandfather of band members James and Ian Skelly. The 85-year old will perform on the new LP under the pseudonym ‘The Great Muriarty’, featuring as an omniscient narrator in atmospheric interludes between the record’s 24 tracks.

In a two-and-a-half minute preview unveiled on the band’s YouTube account this week we see Murray in full flow; delivering a spectral monologue that somehow both revels in and deconstructs nostalgia for “a distant glory era” of post-war British culture with “…people walking round here like they’re carrying the past on their shoulders.”

Murray’s frequent eerie allusions to the fading appeal of the English seaside fairground also chime with some of the album’s central motifs. In an interview with NME this week, frontman James Skelly highlighted the important supporting role his grandfather plays on the record. He said “‘Coral Island’ is a world of end-of-the-pier day drinkers, kids who get where they shouldn’t, pre-rock and roll macabre jukebox pop and long nights of risky fun by the pitch black sea. It seemed to call for a tour guide of some kind. We thought of a few ideas and then Ian said: ‘I’m gonna record grandad doing it and see what happens’. He just did it and it sounded really good.”

Keyboard player Nick Power added “He’s a poetic guy from Runcorn and I wrote out the monologues that go in between the songs and recorded them with him. He’s a natural story-teller. Whenever you see him, he’ll just go straight into a war-time story for about 45 minutes in the middle of the street, and you’ll be engrossed in it…He did a great job! I had to buy him a meal afterwards and he drank me under the table, but it was worth it.”

Last month the group unveiled Coral Island‘s lead single – Faceless Angel - a typically psychedelic Coral number which sets James Skelly’s soulful vocal against a 1950s skiffle-influenced rhythm. There are also otherworldly echoes from an electronic wurtlizer organ that seem to the hearken back to the days of the British dance hall, or even a haunted Blackpool Tower Ballroom. The track was accompanied by a surrealist, nightmarish promo video directed by South Wales-based Edwin Burdis – a former artist-in-residence for Domino Records’ – who has previously worked with the Arctic Monkeys.

Coral Island is the Wirral outfit’s first LP since 2018’s Move Through The Dawn, which The Guardian‘s Dave Simpson hailed as a collection of “vintage songs of sad euphoria“. The record topped the UK Independent Albums Chart and featured on Gigwise and Louder Than War‘s end-of-year best albums lists for 2018.

The new LP is the group’s tenth studio album; coming nineteen years on from their eponymous, Mercury Prize-nominated debut The Coral. That record spawned the band’s breakthrough number in the hummable ska-pop number Dreaming Of You; a precursor to further hit singles over the years that followed including Don’t Think You’re The First; Pass It On and In The Morning.