British Sea Power – Do You Like Rock Music?

To the unsuspecting reader, it would appear that Monday is British Sea Power day, but, it just so happens that when we started up, Waving Flags was just out, and today saw the release of their new album.

Do You Like Rock Music? suggests there’s going to be an obvious album theme: Rock music. Then again, this is British Sea Power, so it’s not going to be a straight forward album.

Opening track All In It will either draw you in, or push you away. It’s a polariser; you either think you want more from these guys or less. Strangely, I must say that Yan sounds a fair bit like Tom from Editors in this track. Enough about that though, because the true power of this album comes in for Lights Out for Darker Skies.

Do I like rock music? Well, if your idea of rock music is ‘Lights Out…’ then frankly, I bloody love the stuff! It’s like what every good rock and roll song should be like; none of the gristle and crap, and more of the passion and oomph.

Even No Lucifer is a brilliant piece of music, making me smirk, which songs never do. A song that can incorporate the Hitler Youth into them gets some kudos for being lyrically clever. Matisyahu once made me smile by using the line “They never gassed me”, and now these boys get credit for that wonder.

I can honestly say, if I did a song by song, I’d tell you I love this album. I am inherently biased towards British Sea Power mind you, but, even if I think of it on a totally impartial scale, the goods still outweigh the bad.

With songs about H5N1 (or Bird Flu), the Hitler Youth, being young, Atoms; it’s all here. Do You Like Rock Music? basically provides you with a question: Do You Like It? The answer should be obvious. You either do or you don’t. I went in liking it, I came out loving this. I don’t know if that was because I went in as a British Sea Power fan, or because in some places it became more Post-Rock than simple Rock.

So, I say, go in, listen to Do You Like Rock Music? and by the end, your answer might not be a wholehearted yes, but, you should be swaying towards it. What this album lacks in cover art, it makes up for in creativity.

I give this lovely twelve-tracker a decent 8 of 10.

British Sea Power – Waving Flags E.P.

First, apologies for being a day behind on this one, but what’s a day in the blog world? Oh, a lot? Really. Okay. It won’t happen again.

British Sea Power, one of the best alternative bands to come out of ‘the North’ (that is Northumbria, England, to be exact) in forever. It takes a lot of doing to make a band this listenable in the Alt-Rock genre, and still make them have a more ‘rock’ sound than the popular indie bands.
The boys of BSP released Waving Flags, the first single off their upcoming album Do You Like Rock Music?, yesterday and it is surprisingly good. I realise we are behind the times, what with the professionals like Zane Lowe and other music journos having their grubby little mits on it for the last god-knows-how-long, but, this is legality and all done on a shoestring budget.

The single itself, as has been stated by innumerable sources, is amazing. It’s been compared to the Arcade Fire, and the person who said that should be shot; it is nowhere near the farce that is the Arcade Fire. If they need seven people to make a decent song, then to make a song with four people, that is as good as one made by seven ‘talented musicians’, is really an achievement.

If you go and buy it, the CD format comes along with the ‘B-side’ extra of an 8 minute long track called Everybody Must Be Saved, and I suppose it falls into the same category as the 14 minute long monster-track Lately from The Decline of British Sea Power, in that it’s a good song, but it’s also good background music. This second track is almost more experimental, reminding me of Animal Collective, if they were more mature.

I’ll go along with the general flow, because, aside from the Arcade Fire comment, the general feeling with this single is right: If enough people heard it, it would be the single of the year, or at least a close contender for those laurels. It should at least be better than the overplayed trash that was Kaiser Cheif’s Ruby, eh?

Since I’m fond of giving a rating to everything, I decree that Waving Flags, as one of the first singles of 2008 that has reached my impure ears, should recieve no less than a high 9 of 10.

Now, I recommend you all hit Itunes, and anywhere else you can get your hands on this, and download it, legally!