Review Summary: Two fingers for the dead, two fingers for the living
The band now known as Sea Power has had an interesting career trajectory. The group emerged from the early 2000s UK indie scene (then under the moniker British Sea Power), with a sound which defied easy characterization, blending accessible indie rock with revivalist post-punk, art rock pretensions, and a sense of whimsy which led to unique live shows and songs written as loving odes to Antarctic ice shelves (“Oh Larsen B”, from 2005’s
Open Season, for those confused). In a familiar tale for that era, the group began as critical darlings (their debut is still perceived as a cult classic), and had several well-regarded early efforts, but their later output steadily dwindled both in terms of popular reach and quality. However, in recent years this narrative has been shaken up, as the collective began again garnering wider attention and critical approval through some unlikely maneuvers. In 2019, the group’s resurrection began with the release of a broadly-acclaimed video game soundtrack,
Disco Elysium. This was followed, on a different front, by the group’s announcement in 2021 that they would now be known only as Sea Power, citing an aversion to the nationalistic connotations evoked by the phrase “British Sea Power”. While I’m not cynical enough to question the band members’ motives, it’s undoubtedly true that the culture war skirmish which this name change ignited also brought the group renewed attention. With the combination of these two factors, the release of new album
Everything Was Forever became more highly-anticipated than expected for this long-running band.
Everything Was Forever still treads similar ground to the group’s early output, resulting in a pretty diverse slate of ten songs which are imbued with a sense of nostalgia, given that the well-executed tunes cater to some currently out-of-vogue sounds. If anything, the band leans on their more atmospheric side here, resulting in a preponderance of post-rock-cum-indie rock stylings which were far more prevalent in the 2000s (the sublime “Fire Escape From The Sea” is the best of this bunch). However, there’s plenty of upbeat and soaring tunes as well, with the irresistible “Two Fingers” and the U2-esque “Green Goddess” standing out. There’s even a glowering post-punk song, “Doppelgangers”, which does its best impression of the soundtrack of a campy sci-fi horror film.
The main distinguishing feature of
Everything Was Forever versus some of the band’s other works is its dark atmosphere and paranoid edge. While there still may be hints of levity here and there, a sinister and even apocalyptic tone predominates. Perhaps that’s no surprise, with this album coming out in the midst of a pandemic which has killed millions, alongside rapidly changing weather patterns and a rise of authoritarianism nearly everywhere. There’s a lot of sheer musical beauty here, both of the pretty and mellow variety and the fist-pumping anthemic kind, but if you take note of the lyrics things quickly become a lot unsettling. There’s the bitter “somebody else was pulling all the levers” line in the otherwise upbeat early track “Transmitter”, not to mention “oh come all ye faithful, we’re so close to the end” in the much more obviously grim “Doppelgangers”. Even a relatively hopeful line in the rousing late-album track “Green Goddess” has a bleak tinge: “yeah, money follows money, and power follows power, but this is not the only way”.
All told,
Everything Was Forever more than exceeds the bar for a collection of tunes from these veteran rockers. Indeed, it’s a contender for their strongest work yet… However, take this last exclamation with a grain of salt as this reviewer was never as unabashed a fan of the group’s early material compared to the consensus. While perhaps not the most coherent or consistent effort (although that never really was the band’s strength), this is a very sound work comprising many great-to-excellent songs which feel deeply relevant to the world’s current state, while also exuding musical throwback vibes.
