Details
Track Listing
1. All In It
2. Lights Out For Darker Skies
3. No Lucifer
4. Waving Flags
5. Canvey Island
6. Down On the Ground
7. Trip Out, A
8. Great Skua, The
9. Atom
10. No Need To Cry
11. Open the Door
12. We Close Our Eyes
Album Notes
Personnel: Abi Fry (viola); Becky Foon (cello); Phil Sumner (cornet); Eamon Hamilton (harmonium); Graham Sutton (keyboards, programming).
Audio Mixer: Graham Sutton.
Recording information: Goldstone Valley, Brithon, UK; Brighton Electric, Brighton, UK; The Strongroom, London, UK; The Princess, Brighton, UK; Sono Records, Nouzov, Czech Republic; Hotel2tango, Montreal; Tregantle Fort, Cornwall, UK.
Photographer: British Sea Power.
Issued in early 2008, British Sea Power's third full-length studio album, DO YOU LIKE ROCK MUSIC?, finds the U.K. band admirably expanding its sound, from the beautifully noisy opener, "All in It," to its slowly unfurling companion-piece finale, "We Close Our Eyes." While the group, led by fiery singer/guitarist Scott "Yan" Wilkinson, still excels at tightly wound, guitar-driven post-punk arrangements, it allows them to have more atmosphere--as on the moody "Lights Out for Darker Skies"--a quality due, in part, to the presence of co-producer Graham Sutton of ambient-rock pioneers Bark Psychosis. While not a radical departure for BSP, this record plays to the ensemble's strengths as a willfully creative and ambitious act, easily eclipsing its previous outings.
Industry Reviews
The album's masterpiece is 'Canvey Island'....A magisterial melodic swell and Yan's croon make it a thing of heart-rending loveliness...
Ranked #31 in Clash's The 40 Best Albums of 2008 -- [A]n honest, downright beautiful breath of fresh air.
[T]he band is firing on full cylinders and full of the usual mischief.
[T]hey may be at their most inspired here on tracks that let it swell, not rip, from the majestic chamber pop and melancholy swoon of 'Waving Flags' and 'Canvey Island' to the slow-burning beauty of 'No Need To Cry.'
3.5 stars out of 5 -- [R]ecorded partly in a derelict water tower and steeped in the political-apocalyptic side of new wave that produced Joy Division.
Ranked #14 in Mojo's The 50 Best Albums Of 2008 -- [The album] mixed rowdy noise, heartfelt tunes and church organs...
4 stars out of 5 -- [T]he choral surge of 'All In It' or the Atlas-sized chants of 'No Lucifer' strain against the confines of indie airspace....British Sea Power are thriving out on the limits.
4 stars out of 5 -- [A]n album that balances intellectual importance with the simple pleasures of great melodies played on meaty guitars.
4 stars out of 5 -- [A] vivid, nostalgic traipse into what good rock bands ought to sound like.
3 stars out of 5 -- [T]he expansive lyrical concerns of the Wilkinson brothers are a source of fascination....Exhilarating in its ambition...
[S]tandouts like 'No Lucifer' and 'Waving Flags' touch real greatness. -- Grade: B+
3.5 stars out of 5 -- From the dirty punk of 'A Trip Out' to the glimmering hope of 'Waving Flags,' the band's third album even recalls Arcade Fire's epic drama.
4 stars out of 5 -- ROCK MUSIC? still captures that intangible essence of something lost and, as such, remains wholly affecting.
CMJ There's a giddy moroseness throughout the record, one embodied by fluid solos that imbue pounding feedback and rollicking rhythms with a lubricated openness.
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