Review Summary: Perhaps the first thematically coherent record from a band that continues to show incredible promise.
From their formation, British Sea Power have seemed to be a band caught up in their own myth and pretension, releasing their debut album with the cover of a mock history book and the title The Decline of British Sea Power. A bewildering blend of the Arcade Fire and the Pixies for the hip, Encyclopedia Britannica-reading set, they put on shows in Cornish mines in giant bear costumes and went by one-word monikers such as Noble and Hamilton.
Thank God for the music, then. If listeners were able to get around their graduate thesis themes and lyrics, such as their love song to an Antarctica ice shelf on “Oh Larsen B” or their offhanded mention of the French Revolutionary calendar from their second album Open Season, they found a band willing to experiment in ways that few modern bands have dared. British Sea Power’s third and best album asks a simple question and proceeds to offer twelve astounding reasons to say “yes.” Running the gamut from post-punk, angular rock to choral, Gregorian chant-influenced soaring melodies to sweeping, grandiose stadium rock, the band combines the disparate sounds from their first two albums into a whole that makes for perhaps their first thematically coherent record.
The album opens with “All In It,” characterized by a simple marching drum pattern and vocalist Yan gently singing with an accompanying organ and a female choir before exploding into a shrieking guitar line and amplified feedback. Throughout it all, Yan continues to repeat the title of the song and advises the listener to “close their eyes,” perhaps in order to more fully appreciate what is to come. “Lights Out for Darkier Skies” is an instant classic, starting off with a ripping drum fill and anchored by a pulsating, melodic guitar line that calls to mind their countrymen in indie-rock outfit Razorlight. The song is six and a half minutes long and diverges halfway through into an U2-esque stadium-sized climax complete with call-and-response vocals and a guitar solo.
Do You Like Rock Music? continues to shift between the frenetic punk blast of their debut and the graceful pastoral anthems of Open Season, with some songs veering back and forth within their beginning and end. Future single “No Lucifer” opens with a haunting violin line and then is rudely interrupted by a raucous snare and a crowd of voices shouting “easy!” while Yan ponders, “is that what the future holds? / Kevlar or cherry wood / malevolence or good?” Up tempo barnburner “Atom” sounds like a song the Strokes lost somewhere in the studio, deceptively beginning with a gentle piano melody before revving up into a frenzied party song with a jaded chorus complaining that “I just don’t get it.” Yan’s vocals and the excellent drum work alone would justify buying the whole album. The album closes as it began on the epic “Close Your Eyes,” eight minutes of ethereal organ and guitar bursts while Yan repeats the lyrics from the beginning of the album. The song is a fitting curtain call, building to a wall-of-sound peak well the band throws everything and the kitchen sink into the production. Literally, the squeaks around the midpoint of the song sound like a plumber fine-tuning his work.
Sure, British Sea Power wear their influences on their sleeve: Yan’s vocal stylings call to mind David Bowie, their orchestral approach to the production mirrors that of Canadian counterparts Broken Social Scene, their guitarist seems to have clearly studied the techniques of the Pixies and the Edge, and their penchant for lyrical nonsense and obscure subjects is more Radiohead than Oasis. However, it is what they do with those influences that make them a new and truly exciting band, separating them from the hordes of British rockers assaulting American radio trying to make a buck off of what their new wave predecessors did twenty years ago. One can't answer the album’s question without seeing both sides of the subject, the good and the bad, the “kevlar and cherry wood.” British Sea Power present both, at once pounding the listener with their punk influences while at another cranking up the orchestra and sweeping melodies to show a softer, more poppish side. With their third release the band has distilled these varying sounds into a fresh adventure into musical history and affirms that, hell yes, we do like rock music.
