The Coral are, at the moment, unfashionable. With the cult of cool Britannia having been passed to the likes of Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, and others, this Scouse six-piece have been left to do their own thing, their own way. And hey, guess what? Suits them perfect-like.

Rewind two years though, and the Coral were one of the buzz bands of a new forefront of a Liverpool sound that had more to do with the Frank Zappa and Syd Barrett of the world, or newer groups like Gomez and Super Furry Animals, than they do fellow Mersey-side legends the Beatles.

Their self-titled debut was a wild ride, but somehow it worked, while follow-up Magic & Medicine streamlined their sound, giving over to a more melody-driven focus, while the compendium Nightfreak and the Sons of Becker cleared the decks to a certain extent. Now it’s time for The Invisible Invasion, which takes the best from both worlds – it has the energy and spark of their debut with the high quality songs of their second effort. It’s grand, and it’s like beginning all over again for the Coral.

“It was pretty much like that,” agrees percussionist John Duffy, “because we knew that we wanted to concentrate on the album and take time doing it, we knew that we could put out a mad album, so that’s what we did.”

Worked up over the course of seven months, the Coral spent time on the twelve songs that make up The Invisible Invasion – they knew that they wanted to get it right this time around, and thus they afforded themselves a luxury they didn’t have for their second album to really craft the each and every moment. As such it feels like a more positive album, returning to the brighter style that gave over to the far darker, more mysterious Magic & Medicine.

“We didn’t want to be typecast into being a crazy, eclectic band,” says percussionist John Duffy of the press reaction to the band after their self-titled debut brought about such completely incomprehensible comparisons as Country Joe and the Fish. “We really worked on the songs a lot this time,” he says, “and we went away for about three weeks to the Lakes district and got all the parts sorted and nailed, so that when we went into the studio we could just do them. We did about five album sessions in our rehearsal room, just so we could see if they sounded good or whether we could get the sound to be like we wanted it to be.”

Then, when it came time to picking a producer for The Invisible Invasion, the Coral did something totally unexpected and out of left field and plumped for Portishead members Geoff Barrows and Adrian Utley.

“We were looking for a new producer,” John explains, “because this was the third album and [long-time producer] Ian Broudie had been great and all but we wanted to try something different. Somehow we just got in contact [with Geoff and Adrian], and they came down to our rehearsal rooms and really loved the stuff, and wanted to produce us.”

What did they bring to the making of the record?

“They were just really good on the post-production of it really,” he says. “They brought a lot of really good equipment with them, and they knew what to do with drum beats and bass and things like that, and it was weird really, because we did our thing then they did their thing, and it worked out really well.”

As things have a habit of doing when you take a calculated risk. It’s something that the band have always been a fan of doing – right from the get-go they were somewhat wild and unpredictable, with wicked time signature shifts and the like on their self-titled debut. Then for Magic & Medicine they swapped it around and delivered a ‘straight’ record. Now The Invisible Invasion combines the best of both worlds.

“The first album was so mad, and we were dead young, and we just went batty in the studio because it was all the ideas that we’d been thinking of doing for years. And for the second we didn’t want to be typecast into being ‘crazy’ or anything like that, so we did this really mellow album. Then when it came to doing this, we wanted a mix – we wanted it to sound crazy but planned.”

Hopeful that The Invisible Invasion will finally see them sojourn to Australia for the first time (John says that whenever they’ve been touring, it’s never come up), he explains that the songs do differ in live format, gaining a harder, faster edge.

“That was one of the main reasons [The Invisible Invasion is like it is], because when we made Magic & Medicine there were a lot of more mellow tunes on it that we couldn’t play live, so when we made this one we concentrated a lot more on what tunes we could do live – we can play every tune off The Invisible Invasion live, whereas about fifty percent of Magic & Medicine we can’t play live.”

Is that because you worked the songs up before going into the studio?

“That was one of the main reasons,” he agrees. “We did play a few songs from Magic & Medicine in England that just didn’t go down well in a gig, so what we did was just try to mix the first two albums so that we could. That was one of the main reasons – we needed to get an album that we could play live.”

It certainly feels like a more positive album, whereas Magic & Medicine was a bit darker.

“Definitely,” John confirms. “We didn’t want to be typecast into being a crazy, eclectic band, so we really worked on the songs a lot this time, and we went away for about three weeks to the Lakes district and got all the parts sorted and nailed, so that when we went into the studio we could just do them.”

Was it much quicker recording that way?

“It took four weeks to do the album, which is not that fast compared to the White Stripes who did their album in a week or whatever, and when did about five album sessions in our rehearsal room, just so we could see if they sounded good or whether we could get the sound to be like we wanted it to be.”

The Coral’s new album The Invisible Invasion is out now.