Review Summary: Great guitar pop for a sunny day.
British Sea Power's second LP 'Open Season' is, in my opinion, their best album by a long shot. By putting aside the chaotic punk and occasional art-rock leanings of the debut effort 'The Decline Of British Sea Power', the band brought the underlying melodies to the fore and created a near masterclass in epic pop.
The influences are still very clear for all to see. Half a pint of The Smiths, half a pint of Echo & The Bunnymen with just a dash of Joy Division. Except the latter of those is almost completely bypassed on this particular album, which instead concentrates somewhat on the sunnier side of things.
Indeed, the two single cuts from this record (opener 'It Ended On An Oiley Stage' and the later 'Please Stand Up') are prime faximiles of Echo & The Bunnymen "set-to-catchy" mode. Imagine 'The Game' or 'The Cutter'. And just like those classic Bunnymen tracks, BSP fuel both with stomping Will Sergent-aping riffs and sweeping echo-laden jangle.
And The Smiths get the same treatment. 'Victorian Ice' and 'Go To Sleep' are exactly the same wonderful stop-start jangle-pop tunes that you'd expect to find lurking behind any of The Smiths' delightfully monochrome single sleeves. But it's actually when BSP look beyond these influences that they find their true brilliance.
'Like A Honeycomb' features soft burbling synths, spiraling piano lines and a striring, anti-xenophobic lyric. It makes for a beautiful moment early on the album. Likewise, the atmospheric 'North Hanging Rock' is utterly beautiful too, with it's soft acoustic florishes soon giving way to layers of cathartic feedback. It's more Explosions In The Sky or Mogwai than either The Smiths or Echo & The Bunnymen.
But like a lot of excellent albums, the greatest highlight comes right at the finish with the seven-minute closing track 'True Adventures'. Starting with an assualt of discordant guitar and almost randomized white noise, it slowly dovetails into an epic ballad. Driven by low bass and emotive e-bow guitar, the song then takes us on a lyrical tour of moutains, valleys and sea-side vistas (replete with squaking sea-gull noises), before returning once more to it's crashing waves of distorted, oceanic noise. It's a full blown indie epic.
'Open Season' is a fantastic album, and one to be enjoyed on a sunny day out in the mountains or by the riverside. It has a couple of tracks that could qualify as deadwood ('How Will I Ever Find My Way Home' & 'The Land Beyond'), but they're both harmless and pass without marring the atmosphere. In the end, British Sea Power were never this good before or, indeed, after. Very nearly a classic.
