BRITISH SEA POWER: OPEN SEASON (2005)
1) It Ended On An Oily Stage;
2) Be Gone; 3) How Will I Ever Find My Way Home?; 4) Like A Honeycomb; 5)
Please Stand Up; 6) North Hanging Rock; 7) To Get To Sleep; 8) Victorian Ice;
9) Oh Larsen B; 10) The Land Beyond; 11) True Adventures.
EPIC alert! Maybe, this time around, fueled by
the critical success of Arcade Fire, British Sea Power hit it loud, proud, and
hyper-arch-pretentious, and never let go for even one second. «Sea power»
indeed — Pathos, with a capital P, roars and thrashes here with ferocious wave
amplitude. If it weren't for Yan's «anthemic loudest whisper in the world», I'd
say they were trying to outdo U2 and The Cure rolled together on most of these
tracks, but since the man is so obviously «vocally challenged» (yet tries to
turn it to his advantage), the comparison would be somewhat off.
Surprisingly, the songs are good! I will admit
that I totally hated this upon first listen — the stubborn hooks had no
intention of climbing out from under all the walls of sound, and the
monotonousness of it all weighed heavy on the soul. As in, if you want to make
something that loud, that romantic, that pathetic, make it short and sweet: ten songs in a row based on
the same approach and groping in the same limited bag of tricks (simple 4/4
beats, droning electric or strumming acoustic rhythms, atmospheric keyboard /
female vocal background) get annoying very
quickly if each one is slapped with the seal of «Hello, I am The Artist, and I
am here to help you Get Inspired».
Eventually, though, it clicks. No, they are
still nowhere near Arcade Fire: Yan and Hamilton's imagination suffers from a
serious lack of vitamins compared to Win and Regine's. (On the other hand,
Yan's obscure, intricate lyrics might easily make them intellectual darlings
compared to Arcade Fire's more transparently «populist» approach). But it
would be slanderous to say that the music here is just a vehicle for Yan's
incomprehensible, yet still overblown ego. With Hamilton and Noble, they are
honestly trying to come up with simple, but distinct and, hopefully, memorable
guitar hooks for each song. Listen to how ʽIt Ended On An Oily Stageʼ begins —
with a massive electric riff riding on a crest of unchanging rhythm chords, and
then one more riff is tracing and echoing Yan's vocals in the chorus. It's
hardly genius, I'd say, but it's an attempt to make some damn good music, and,
with a little patience, it gets through.
Still more of these simple, but meaningful
electric phrases can be found on ʽBe Goneʼ (powerful, but plaintive, which is
probably supposed to agree with obscure references to the French Revolution in
the lyrics), ʽPlease Stand Upʼ (this song could easily come out as generic
alt-rock, but there is something subtly non-generic in the way its guitar
wailings mesh with Yan's «gray-eyed soul»), and ʽOh Larsen Bʼ (referring to the
collapse of an Antarctic ice shelf and not
to a close Norwegian friend of Yan's, as could be suggested).
But the best of the lot is arguably ʽHow Will I
Ever Find My Way Home?ʼ, which begins like a fast, quintessentially cozy
Brit-pop number, then drops the coziness for a totally dandy two-note guitar
solo (a real tasty bit of 21st century power-pop aggressiveness here), then
races towards a proverbial ecstatic climax. Again, maybe it won't make the
annals, but it's a brilliantly executed piece of work all the same — and its
main emotions, «cautious tenderness» and «restrained malice», are absolutely
not what you'd usually expect with that kind of title (something à la Bee Gees? James Taylor, maybe?).
Again, they try their luck on the last number —
ʽTrue Adventuresʼ loses the punch, the speed, the energy, and, for much of its
duration, even the rhythm, and tends to woo you over with atmospheric trills,
frills, and spills. It certainly ties in with the roaring oceanic feel of the
rest of the album, but really, guitar-based atmospherics is so passé now, guys:
what do you want, bring back shoegazing? At least if y'all were a bunch of
Robert Fripps... but perish the thought.
Altogether, I am still torn. Open Season is most definitively a
grower, and there is definitively something of a «real thing» about Yan and his
buddies — even now, when they go for a much more streamlined, less
experimental, more «rock-oriented», less intellectualized (apart from the
lyrics) approach than on their debut. But it's hard to get away from the feeling
that the album is inadequate, and that these guys could use some subtlety — all
these Herculean efforts to «make yourself look big», in the end, are like a
bunch of Springsteen bastards that only managed to improve on their father by
reading a few extra books.
If it weren't for their surprising ability to
punch out these nice guitar melodic bits, there would be very little to
recommend about the record. Any way you look at it, it is a post-Decline decline; but it still gets a thumbs up.
In fact, ʽHow Will I Ever Find My Way Home?ʼ would probably deserve a spot on a
top 50 list of «best songs of the 2000s» or something like that.
Got this one by sheer chance 6 or 7 years ago (wanted to buy Kate Bush's Aerial, but my record store didn't have it), and was never really disappointed. Once you get past the slightly obnoxious, 'Bono indie-fied' vocals, you will hear catchy, really well-written songs. "Be Gone", "How Will I Ever...", "Please Stand Up" and "Victorian Ice" in particular are indie-pop gems. Instrumentally too - this is good stuff.
ReplyDeleteThis band is horrendous. George, please don't review a bunch of generic indie bands.
ReplyDeleteI back this request. Review Black Sabbath and preferably Budgie too and you'll see how many responses you'll get. Or does that scare you off?
ReplyDeleteYeah and Bjork, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Belle and Sebastian, Bob Dylan, Blur, Amadou and Mariam, Bread, Ben Folds... the list goes on and on.
DeleteI don't think he does requests.
He'll get round to everyone in time. Part of the delight of this site is seeing what direction George's whims will take him.
Both of those bands were on his old site; they'll be here eventually.
DeleteI don't think either, but not shooting is always wide, as we Dutch say.
ReplyDelete"Both of those bands were on his old site; they'll be here eventually."
ReplyDeleteThe first part I know since at least three years. As I can't comment there I'm impatient regarding the second part.