WIRRAL band The Coral's guitarist Paul Molloy has announced details of his second solo album.

Molloy has trailed his new album with his latest single, Apocalypso, described as a "brass-gilded, hot-stepping soundtrack to humanity dancing their way to oblivion."

Following up his 2020 debut solo album, The Fifth Dandelion, and after The Coral’s own resurgence with a run of uncompromisingly expansive, instant-classic albums since 2021’s Coral Island, Molloy’s borderless exploration of musical history and modern planetary ills come together on his 11-track “musical satire of the Apocalypse.”

Picking up as many cues from the furthest flung corners of 24-hour news and eccentrics caught on camera as pop history’s greatest storytellers, the multi-instrumentalist’s strange new world holds mirrors up to the weirdness of this bad old world.

Circling off-leash, Walls And Bridges-era John Lennon and the freedom of Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band’s late-60’s Beatles-endorsed run of form, Apocalypso’s one-way-ticket upstairs into nirvana rather than to the fiery basement of hell is bought by learning the moves and dancing past God’s gatekeeper.

Molloy said: “This track plays a central role in the album. A bit of wordplay, it’s essentially a send up dance craze tune à la the Macerna, Watusi, The Monkey, Jerk or The Twist, but set to a calypso rock n’ roll beat with inverted Biblical lyrics and mariachi horns. A new-fangled dance that grants the participants access to Heaven when they die, depending on their level of skill at the dance.

“With the dance judge being none other than St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, it embraces the idea that no matter how hard we try, we seem unable to stop ourselves on being hellbent on destruction.”

The Madmen Of Apocalypso will be released on CD, limited-edition vinyl and digital formats on Fri 6 September 2024 on Spring Heeled Records.

A long-serving member of his home city’s musical community, Molloy’s live, studio and songwriting credits with peers and collaborators, including Edgar Jones, The Stands, Zutons and a widely-acclaimed tie-up with Ian Skelly as Serpent Power, led to him pick up full-time lead guitar duties in The Coral from the recording of their 2015 album, Distance Inbetween.

Taking his time to perfect the upbeat and observational, sold-out success of The Fifth Dandelion, which landed in the lost-at-sea atmosphere of international lockdowns, Molloy’s perfectionist’s dedication to crafting albums that crystallise a moment and outlast fashion has continued into his second, meticulously assembled long-player.

Updates on the release of The Madmen Of Apocalypso and single releases will be found on Paul Molloy’s social media channels as well as the Spring Heeled Records profiles and website. 

Molloy is also playing a handful of live dates:

07.09.24 - Loafers, Halifax

08.09.24 -Wax & Beans, Bury

21.09.24 - Jacaranda, Liverpool