Coral – Disappear I Feel

Sweden’s Miranda Coral Engholm’s 2019 debut single ‘find me wrong’ has racked up over half a million Spotify streams so far, its lo-fi, self-produced vibe connecting with lovers of heart-on-the-sleeve. Follow-up ‘better’ was recorded on her phone and set the template of an artist whose songs are like pages torn from her diary and whose aesthetic is firmly DIY.

So the challenge for Coral when she headed into the studio with producer Joakim Lindberg to record debut album ‘Spoon’ was to maintain the raw intimacy of her earliest tracks while building and developing her sound.

A clutch of singles last year were ambitious in both songwriting and production, while steadfastly holding on to the lo-fi beauty of her first two singles. The first taste of the album – ‘i just want you cause you’re gone’ in October – saw Coral use a full band for the first time to deliver an Alvvays-style edge to her intimate songwriting.

Recent singles ‘no worth’ and ‘instant noodles’ were returns to a mainly acoustic sound, but ‘disappear i feel’ – the final single before the album’s release on 12 March – shows a whole new side to Coral. It sounds like one of PJ Harvey’s four-track demos from early in her career, with a brooding, bluesy guitar line straight from the swamp that howls with feedback as the song builds. Vocally, Coral really lets loose with a howling rage that’s in a fight to the death with the swirls of guitar.

It’s raw and menacing, revealing another gear to Coral’s songwriting armoury and another level to the excellent debut album.

Jamie Summerfield