This band is endlessly compared to Joy Division, but in my opinion, that’s a rather lazy parallel. The JD references are perfectly apt for a group like Interpol, but rings rather hollow with British Sea Power. Their ambitions are on orders of magnitude higher than the depressive Manchester post-punks, who, lest we forget, first made their name by way of:

a) courting controversy over their seemingly Nazi-inspired name.
b) the suicide of its vocalist, Ian Curtis in 1980.
c) the staggering commercial success of the group that rose from its ashes, New Order.

In fact, had the success of New Order’s 1988 druggy fever dream single ‘Blue Monday’ not refocused attention on the Joy Division compilation Substance released that same year, the group would in all probability have continued to languish in obscurity.

I get the impression that British Sea Power got a bit weary of those comparisons as well, especially since their 2003 debut was pretty much split between shrill Pixies-style guitar mayhem and gorgeous, pensive ballads that drew heavily from latter-day Roxy Music and at points, Bauhaus. That’s something that might have triggered a change in direction with this, their sophomore record.

Punters looking for the rough guitar attack of previous singles like ‘Remember Me’ may well be disappointed with the opener ‘It Ended on an Oily Stage’. But they shouldn’t, because if there’s one thing this group is capable of, it’s carrying a tune. The shock of the sprightly guitar pop evident here will wear off with repeated listens, and perhaps even grow on you. The supremely catchy ‘Be Gone’ follows up as guitarist Yan’s (Scott Wilkinson) smoky voice intones “Agonic lines, ascendances and amatory tendencies/From here to heart arrhythmias/Oh don't you know we're not like this” over a toe-tappingly fun reverbed guitar line, with the distortion turned down to nearly nothing.

I must continue to stress that this is a good thing, as it really brings out BSP’s skills for writing a brilliant melody. The lyric excerpt posted above brings to mind another group that’s had a fair bit of influence on this record: The Smiths. While Yan’s lyrics frequently approach Morrissey levels of annoyingly pedantic poesy, it’s clear that the band isn’t taking itself too seriously on this record. The light-hearted ‘How Will I Ever Find My Way Home?’ sees bassist Hamilton (Scott Wilkinson) getting in on the vocal action, lamenting the exaggerated bores of modern life; paying the bills, balancing work and personal relationships, and planning to get away from it all one day but never getting around to it.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a BSP album without a couple of brooding ballads, which arrive in the form of ‘Like a Honeycomb’ and ‘North Hanging Rock’. The latter is possibly about civil war, while the latter deals with drug use; it’s a bit difficult to tell, given the group’s penchant for obscure literary references and the litany of nature-oriented euphemisms (the titles alone are indicative of this, and I haven’t evyen gotten to ‘Oh Larsen B’ and ‘Victorian Ice’ yet). ‘Like a Honeycomb’ is one of the highlights of the record, with a defiantly soaring hook buried beneath the deceptively quiet acoustic melody.

The single ‘Please Stand Up’ picks up the pace with a dose of Belle & Sebastian-influenced pop (but with more guitars, and less twee), and may well be the highlight of the record. The bouncy guitar lines and soaring sing-along choruses were present in parts of The Decline of British Sea Power, like ‘Carrion’ as well, but are now free from burdensome historic/literary allusions, making the songs flow more naturally. ‘To Get to Sleep’ merely reinforces the previous point, by emphasizing the personal, rather than the didactic, and wrapping it up in a concise pop song recalling the House of Love and early Blur.

Ultimately, this record reminds me a lot of the Pixies’ Bossanova, in the sense that it was a major transformation from the experimentalism of Surfer Rosa and (the more pop-oriented) Doolittle. British Sea Power have isolated some of the influences that made their first album near-essential, like the crystalline guitars of Echo and the Bunnymen, and the wit of Gang of Four and fleshed them out over an entire album. It’s the sound of a band switching out the cigarettes and mescaline for a cup of tea, with tremendously impressive results.


Recommended: Yes