British Sea Power – Do You Like Rock Music? (2008)

British Sea Power was probably not very well known around the world, but they definitely were one of the important indie rock bands to me in the mid-00s, the era of guitar-indie bands. Their second album, Open Season, was an amazing album and I would say it's still their masterpiece. I've listened to that album a lot over the years. Do You Like Rock Music? had to follow that album, so obviously the expectations were really high. I don't think the album really could fulfil those expectations and overall this album was a bit of a disappointment, while it is still a very good album if you don't consider what came before. There are some fantastic hits on the album, but it's not as strong throughout and there are some parts where I get a bit bored. I really like the CD cover of this album, with its uneven cardboard surface that sets it apart from other CD case design.



British Sea Power is from Brighton and now, ten years later, Brighton has a new meaning for me as I've visited this seafront city quite a few times. I like finding out that some of my favourite bands are from Brighton, because there's something truly sympathetic about that city. It's filled with vegetarian restaurants, street art, alternative scenes and arts. British Sea Power's grandiloquent music gets an appropriate scenery once you've been walking on the white hills called the Seven Sisters, near Brighton. It's a dramatic place with vertical white rock face to the sea below. This is a scenery for British Sea Power's music.

The album starts with a singalong song, All In It, that sounds quite a bit like a sea shanty. It's a great opening song as it starts kind of distant and quiet but keeps growing and growing until it explodes with post-rock guitar walls. This song is then continued by the first classic British Sea Power power pop rock song Lights Out for Darker Skies. At this point, when listening for the first time, it seemed that the expectations for the album really were met. The melodies are delightfully catchy. No Lucifer has strong power chords and fast tempo, but the melody is not very inventive. I do like the yells here and there. Then it's time for the greatest hit song of the album, Waving Flags. This larger than life rock anthem delivers exactly what British Sea Power does best, simple yet excellent melodies and sense of drama between quiet parts and explosive post-rock guitar walls. Canvey Island starts off quiet, but grows into bigger sounds as the song progresses, but still it remains a bit similar throughout, which makes it a bit boring as a song. Down On the Ground shows some sharp guitar riffs that are maybe not as common in BSP's music. The riffs remind me of late Sonic Youth, even though the sounds are much more conventional rock music. A Trip Out continues in similar vein and the drums really show their best in this song. The echoes make this song sound a bit more like the new indie bands that appeared around 2010 that moved away from garage rock sounds to bigger echoes and more careful studio sounds. The Great Skua is mellow and hypnotic instrumental ballad where the band gets to play with post-rock influences. Unfortunately the band is better in creating guitar indie hit songs and this song stays a bit mild compared to bands like Mogwai or Explosions in the Sky. Atom starts out with some psychedelic quiet bits, but it then suddenly changes into a full blown punk rock song with very fast guitar riffs. No Need to Cry is another hypnotic slow song that relies on looping guitars and simple melodies. I think this is not as impressive as you might expect. Open the Door is a surprisingly good hit song considering it's been left to such a late phase of the album. Sure, there are some lazy bits in the middle that I'm not that much into, but when the song gets going, there are some really nice bits in it. The album ends with We Close Our Eyes which is mostly just buzzing noise featuring some other parts of the album. This can be seen as something of a flashback to the band's debut album The Decline of British Sea Power, which had many more noise parts like this.

There's only one possible option of songs to link here as a music video. Waving Flags really is the most impressive song on the album, so it's appropriate to link that here. The video features beautiful landscapes near British seafront, the band playing indoors and slow-motion kite flying. There's also a sea fortress and some navy flags in the video, which are direct references to the band name and the song title. The video seems quite low-budget thing, but it's nice enough for the purpose.

I only saw British Sea Power live a few years ago here in London. They played with a full brass band, which made the show really impressive. I really do like full-on brass band especially when they're linked to indie rock that I like.

British Sea Power was a very important band for me in the mid-00s, but later on I haven't really listened to them that much. I guess it was partly because their new albums weren't that interesting, but also because the musical world moved on from guitar indie and so did I. Nevertheless, whenever I hear some of these old hits I can clearly remember why I liked this band so much.

Listen to the album on Spotify.