British Sea Power

Well shit, Open Season is also hitting the spot!

Open Season is really good, DYLRM stumbles a bit (though it didn't deserve the Pitchfork joke review treatment it got)

DYLRM got a positive pfork review iirc. the bad ones were valhalla and machineries, both by ian cohen so

oh shit. nm. i remember now

"True Adventures" from Open Season is one of my all-time favorite album-closers.

Yeah, 'True Adventures' rules... and I'll bet it sounds better in a live environment. I really need to see this band live.

Onto Do You Like Rock Music? ... it's a bit cleaner and feels more beefed-up/muscular compared to the previous two - I'm loving it, though!

Do You Like Rock Music? had a pretty strong effect on me - in a way the rest of their stuff just hasn't (chunks of Man of Arran aside). I still listen every few months. Need to revisit the earlier albums.

Holy shit, 'We Close Our Eyes' is an incredible closer - these guys really know how to do epics.

Damn, I hadn't seen that Pitchfork review of "Valhalla Dancehall". They miss the point completely, it's exactly their attempt to "marry both their quirkier sensibilities and arena-level hooks" that makes it so compelling and downright fun! The "Zeus" mini-album is arguable even better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDPS3u_DBw4

I really like 'Zeus'. "Cleaning Out The Rooms" might be my favourite BSP song.

Of course that's on the album too. The other 'Zeus' track I love is "Bear".

^ Their two best songs. I'm refusing to buy the new album unless anyone makes the claim that there is a song as good on there.

No one will make that claim.

that's a cruelly high standard. and not really close.

Halfway through Valhalla Dancehall and I now officially love this band - nobody is as surprised about this as much as I am and I'm left wondering why this stuff didn't click with me before. Maybe it was just that I needed to hear the right song at the right time.

I haven't picked up the new album yet, the singles have sounded fine but 'Machineries of Joy' passed me by a little when it came out, I bought it but must have been to busy listening to other things to properly get into it.

Maybe it was just that I needed to hear the right song at the right time.

I could list dozens of bands where that was true for me. I still revisit things to see if the intervening years of listening has changed my perceptions.

Back to BSP: they've got a large cache of non-lp material, much of which is worth hearing. This is my single favorite obscurity, though it's cheating a bit because the vocals are handled by Kateřina Winterová of Ecstasy of Saint Theresa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHgpNZSxwPU

There's an older version of that song with Hamilton on vocals that's just as Lovely.

IIRC it concerns the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c_XaSrLzEM

Was really disappointed by Open Season and Do You Like Rock Music. They were not bad albums at all but the debut was amazing and got me thinking they were going to be one of the great rock bands of their era. I'd love a compilation of the early singles and EPs, surprised it never happened by now.

I've been a little hesitant to check the new stuff. I felt Open Season suffered for not using their better singer enough (I don't know their names) because one is way better than the other.

fwiw the same singer, yan, sings all but 2 songs on decline and all but 3 on open season. i would characterize those first two and the most recent as the most dominated by him.

Is this the most recent thread? Anyway, they have announced they've changed their name - they've dropped the "British" bit.

International Sea Power

https://slinky.to/twofingers

I mean, hey, good enough reasoning for me:

On Monday 9 August 2021, the band announced that they would henceforth be known as Sea Power due to “a rise in a certain kind of nationalism in this world – an isolationist, antagonistic nationalism that (they) don’t want to run any risk of being confused with.”

New single sounds very promising. I mean, yeah, nothing radically new in their sound but it's still a sound I dig.

otm

Excited to see where they go from here.

Anyone particularly feeling the album?

I'll sit down and give it a listen this evening. Press seems positive.

This new one has a couple of highlights, but it feels a bit lackadaisical in general.

Funny, I felt that way about the last couple — they'd have a formidable track or two, and the rest never quite gelled. This latest one felt much more polished and cohesive, even if it's not their most adventurous.

I'm going to agree with Rizzx's assessment - there are a couple of stand out tracks that come early ("Transmitter", "Two Fingers"), a couple of other solid songs and the rest is nice sub-shoegaze that moves too slowly for what I want. A good listen but nothing that's going to make me return. The truth is, I haven't played the last one since it came out, either. I think this is where I get off the bus.

It's been growing on me this album, it's very textural and melodic and with Two Fingers it has a song that could be a peace anthem for these times.

Just like Liberace
I will return to haunt you with
Peculiar piano riffs