"Have you ever heard of a great punk band from the 80s called The Shaven Cocks? Great!"

How galling it must be for all the rest. I mean, if the limited edition it's-not-really-their-third-album Nightfreak And The Sons Of Becker really is The Coral dicking about and not really taking things seriously, then they're an even more special band than I've previously given them credit for.

What on first listen seems an uneven 28 minute long hotpotch of half-finished ideas soon reveals its true worth as very nearly the equal of the two albums to have gone before. Though there perhaps isn't the killer single that both The Coral and Magic And Medicine possessed ('Dreaming Of You' and 'Pass It On' respectively), what you have to realise is that there are enough genius ideas here, whether half-finished or otherwise, to make other bands very jealous indeed.

In musical terms, as the album title might suggest there's a latent psychosis lurking in some songs ('I Forgot My Name', 'Auntie's Operation', 'Migraine') and a sinister gloom hanging heavy over others ('Song Of The Corn', 'Keep Me Company'). But, perhaps surprisingly, tracks like 'Venom Cable' and 'Sorrow Or The Song' lollop along with a loosely funky gait, blessed with lithe and fluid basslines, and 'Grey Harpoon' even sounds like a stab at mainstream r'n'b influenced pop. All pointers for what is to come, I hope.

Lyrically they're as charmingly daft as ever - fans of tracks like 'Simon Diamond' and 'Talking Gypsy Market Blues' won't be disappointed. Witness the following: "She'll want your sympathy / She'll never let you be / Sniffing at your food / Before it's even chewed" ('Auntie's Operation') and "Doctor doctor, tearing my hair out / Doctor doctor what's it all about? / I feel nervous and I'm feeling sick / My body's shaking and I'm shitting bricks" ('Migraine').

Without doubt the most ceaselessly inventive and artistically restless band we've got. Thankfully that aesthetic restlessness also manifests itself in the desire to keep writing, recording and releasing gems of records.

The Coral are also influencing my reading habits - having just finished Amis's 'Money', I was going to move on to 'Filth' by Irvine Welsh, but decided it might be wise to take a break from the dirty rotten scoundrels and spend some time with Dylan Thomas's 'Under Milk Wood' instead.