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Progressive combo British Sea Power, hailing from England
(Yan on vocals and guitar, his brother Hamilton on bass, Noble on guitar, Wood on drums, Eamon on percussion/keyboards),
summarized quite a bit of British rock and pop music on
The Decline Of (Rough Trade, 2003).
The range of moods was quite wide. At one end of the spectrum the band
launched into feverish, punkish, hysterical rigmaroles (Apologies to Insect Life, Favours in the Beetroot Fields,
Remember Me).
At the other end of the spectrum, they indulged in catchy melodies reminiscent
of dark-punk of the late 1970s
(Something Wicked, Fear of Drowning), if not of earlier
Bowie-esque pop (The Lonely, Carrion).
Alas, there were also embarrassing Brit-pop tunes and quite a bit of filler.
On the other hand,
the slow-burning 14-minute Lately seemed to belong to another album,
as it blends Grateful Dead's acid-jams,
the Byrds' cosmic folk-rock
and early Genesis' progressive suites.
And the closing, six-minute instrumental Heavenly Waters
was even more psychedelic.
BSS went decisively pop on Open Season (Rough Trade, 2005), that maintains little
of the first album's energy and boldness, preferring instead to smooth out the
edges and focus on the melodies.
While retaining the band's trademark sound,
North Hanging Rock and It Ended On An Oily Stage are products
ready for mass consumption.
This is the kind of album that great bands do after ten years, when they
have have inexorably aged and exhausted their creative stage.
The band continued its flirt with mainstream rock on
Do You Like Rock Music (Rough Trade, 2008),
bordering on pomp with the virulent rock'n'roll rhythm and soothing vocals of Lights Out for Darker Skies
and Down On The Ground.
Atom boasts punkish energy to justify that pomp.
At the other end of the spectrum, the band borders
on wimpiness with the soft ballad No Need to Cry.
The David Bowie-esque Waving Flags and the simple rigmarole of
Open The Door are the songs that reap the benefits of
a stronger sense of melody. The painstaking arrangements try to do the rest.
The band does not follow up on the most intriguing intuitios: the
choral hymn All In It that opens the album, the
tribal and droning No Lucifer, the
ghostly noise concerto We Close Our Eyes that closes the album.
It would probably be beyond their ability.
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