British Sea Power - Decline Of British Sea Power

  by Anthony Strutt

published: 13 / 7 / 2003

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Review

British Sea Power are brothers Yan and Hamilton, who both play guitar, Noble who plays bass, and Wood who appears on drums. Yan is also the main vocalist. To date the band have released 4 singles, 3 of which are featured here. British Sea Power are still finding a fan base, but do scare their audiences by being weird, odd and unusual, which is not a bad thing in my eyes. 'The Decline of British Sea Power' is their debut album, and is a fine record consisting of eleven tracks. It opens up with 41 seconds of British Sea Power harmonising like choirboys on a short track called 'Men Together Today'. Next up is 'Apologies to Insect Life' which starts off with dubby bass, Bunnymen style drums from their "Bedbugs and Ballyhoo' era and the most avant-garde new wave shouted vocal this side of 1977. The guitar lines on this track are very firey. 'Favours in the Beetroot Fields', which originally appeared on their fourth single, 'Childhood Memories', is very fast and short and again in a 70's new wave style. 'Something Wicked' is more song structured and not so new wave. The fifth track is 'Remember Me', which is the song that British Sea Power will be remembered for if nothing else. It is a classic kick-in-the-balls rocker with a killer guitar break and stunning lyrics. This is followed by "Fear of Drowning', which is very dark and gloomy, and reminiscent of the early Cure. After these two singles is single No. 3, 'The Lonely', which again ihas been written n a classic song structure style. The rest of the album features strong song based tunes with different textures. They update further on what a lot of 80's bands used to do by building upon their influences and making them sound fresh to an ever growing older audience. One of the highlights of this second half of this album is "Lately' which clocks in at 13 minutes 59 seconds. It starts off slowly and in a jangly style and then builds gradually into new depths before turing into a full rocking anthem which 3 times in a row sounds like it is going to fade out, but then just carries on. It all ends with ' A Wooden Horse', a nice, quiet piano based track and which brings an excellent end to a great first album. Far from being the decline, this is a healthy start..

Track Listing:-

1 Men Together Today
2 Apologies to Insect Life
3 Favours in the Beetroot Fields
4 Something Wicked
5 Remember Me
6 Fear of Drowning
7 The Lonely
8 Carrion
9 Blackout
10 Lately
11 A Wooden Horse
12 Alberts Eyes
13 Moley and Me
14 The Smallest Church in Sussex
15 Salty Water
16 Strange Communication
17 Birdy
18 Heavenly Waters
19 A Lovely Day Tomorrow
20 Apologies to Insect Life (Russian Rock Demo)
21 Scottish Wildlife Experience
22 No Red Indian
23 Good Good Boys

Band Links:-

https://www.britishseapower.co.uk
https://en-gb.facebook.com/BSPofficial
https://twitter.com/BSPOfficial