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Open
Season
Independent
on Sunday, 3 April 2005
British Sea Power's second album takes the most melodic
aspects of the first and refines them into a listening experience
of enduring reward. Set against pulse-quickening, neck-hair
bristling guitars of a vaguely 80s indie hue, frontman Yan's
lyrics are reliably erudite and esoteric and unapologetically
Anglocentric. One for the Albums of the Year list. *****
The
Sunday Times, 3 April 2005
BSP have
produced an album as good as, perhaps even better, than their
debut. They justify a top-table placing even in today's packed
musical pantheon. *****
The
Independent, 1 April 2005
Where
most psych-rockers wallow in a miasmic slough, BSP's explorations
are anchored by a powerful rhythm section and boast the kind
of ringing, anthemic hooks that Coldplay would kill for. The
result is that even on dreamy reflections such as To Get To
Sleep and The Land Beyond there's no hint of drift, no sense
that the song has become becalmed. Open Season is a splendid,
individual achievement, fully the equal of more high profile
recent offerings from BSP's peers. *****
The
Guardian, 25 March 2005
As with the Smiths, you are struck by the thrilling sense
of being drawn into a world not defined by tired standard
rock iconography. Not just a marvellous album, Open Season
is a triumphant lesson in sweeping gracefully towards the
mainstream with your imagination and mystery intact. ****
More
Open Season reviews
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The
Decline of British Sea Power
Mojo,
June 2003
An album
of stadium-sized melodies and exquisite song-writing. An album
to move and intrigue. It seems the intense, intelligent, nonconformist
listener has a new band to love.
****
The
Guardian, 30 May 2003
This
startlingly audacious debut is unlike anything you'll hear
this year. Looking to the dark early 80s sounds of the Psychedlic
Furs and Joy Division, the band's retro claustrophobia collides
with very modern, utterly stinging confusion. Military drumrolls
fight against keyboards, heavy guitars try to drown out electronica,
and all the time the tension between lofty lyricism and posturing
musical simplicty grows. British Sea Power will fight them
on the beaches - and they might just win.
****
Independent
on Sunday, 1 June 2003
BSP write songs that you can actually ponder over time
- imagine that - and The Decline... will almost certainly
be the only album this year to mention Scapa Flow and the
Death's Head Hawk Moth. Their always poised, often epic rock
oscillates between the frenzied and the elegiac. A strange
and exhilarating record. ****
Daily
Telegraph, 31 May 2003
Pin back yer lugholes, one of the most exciting albums
of 2003 has arrived. Listening to The Decline of British Sea
Power is a scalp-prickling, nape-tickling, ear-blistering
experience. The tunes are beautiful, sad and wise. At times,
it's reminiscent of Billy MacKenzie's Associates in the near
hysterical fervour that runs through every song -a febrile,
urgent madness which suggests time is running out, that if
this stuff isn't somehow captured here and now, it will be
gone forever. Mercifully, they've caught it, and here it is,
in all its epic glory.
More
Decline of... reviews
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Live
Drowned
in Sound, 25 November 2005
As a communal gathering, nothing beats the intimacy of a British
Sea Power gig and when Yan invites all and sundry onto the
stage for a choatically improvised Rock in A, the feeling
of satisfaction normally gained from watching a good show
is
quickly transcended into one of honour at having witnessed
an extraordinary event. Gig of the year? Quite possibly.
Daily
Telegraph, 27 April 2004
The looks of wistful joy on the faces of the audience
when BSP played Favours in the Beetroot Fields suggest they
have found a band to restore their faith in pop music. But
the piece de resistance of this astonishing, hilarious, life-enhancing
gig was the arrival of the Ursine Ultra, an enormous grizzly
bear figure who spent the awesome final song attacking the
band. Man's battle with nature may never be won, but British
Sea Power put up a jolly good fight.
Sunday
Times, 8 June 2003
In the Scillonian Club what feels like the island's entire
population is raising merry hell. Ruddy-faced old men sway
at the bar. Grandmothers and five-year-olds essay crazed dance
figures. By the end of the night, the club is threatening
to explode. "Evening," says one of the regulars.
"Fantastic band, wern-ay?" Outside, a heaving mass
of locals and band members walk unsteadily though the warm
rain to the beach. There is one phrase, and one phrase alone,
that comes to mind when describing British Sea Power: the
best band in Britain.
Rollingstone.com,
review of Reading Festival, 4 September 2002
F**k this puerile drivel, we're going to see British Sea Power,
who are everything that Weezer are not... British Sea Power
are mad as f**k on every level. All of them have this crazy
acid-fried stare, the bass player is wearing tree branches
on his head, and one deliriously psycho-delic tune concludes
with singer Yan beating on the drum kit with a large stuffed
owl. British Sea Power rule.
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Live reviews
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