Do You Like Rock Music?

May 31, 2008 | By Doug In Rock |

Do You Like Rock Music?
Since forming in 2000, Brighton renegades British Sea Power have firmly stomped their own path. Whether dressing up as 1930s Boy Scouts on stage, walking through their audiences beating drums or exploring the peripheries of rock music (as on their first two albums 2003’s The Decline Of British Sea Power and 2005’s Open Season) they have honed a style that’s all their own. Do You Like Rock Music? sees the band continue their uniquely exploratory approach. Enlisting producers Efrim Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor) and Graham Sutton (Jarvis Cocker), the band seem even more determined in their effort to create something adventurous. But despite these veteran helping hands and the towering, oppressive atmospheres that mark the introductory songs on the album–all pounding drums, bleak rockscapes and chanting choruses–this is a deceptively accessible record. Tunes like “Atom” and “Down on the Ground”–both heard last on the band’s Krankenhaus EP)–are full of edgy BSP bombast; but Arcade Fire-esque opener “All in It,” the shoegazery “Canvey Island,” “Great Skua,”–and especially “Waving Flags”–are stadium-sized songs to wave your lighter around to. Then again, BSP playing it safe is still a much more convincing–not to mention entertaining–proposition than many of their conformist contemporaries. Rollickin’ stuff. –Danny McKenna

Customer Review: British Music at its best
I was a bit dissapointed with open Season after their first album The Decline of….. But they have come back with possibly the album of the year and its only February

Anybody who gives this 1 star should go back to their Simply Red and Take That Albums

Customer Review: Long Overdue
Its good to see British Sea Power getting some praise at long last. Sure “The Decline Of..” rightly got great reviews but it was too raw for some, with DYLRM? they have made their sound deeper and more cavernous, while the songs while by no means dumbed down are more accessible to the mainstream but still bear the hallmarks of their quirky debut. Like a previous reviewer said there is no point picking out best songs as your favourite changes daily. A great achievement and surely at last they have the Mercury prize in the bag, they deserve it as BSP are the only UK band to produce 3 high quality albums this decade. Some of us have been sailing with them all the way but we WELCOME IN all newcomers.