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Elly Roberts reviews
Rough Trade
- January 2008
- Rating: 6/10
BSP wave goodbye to Top 10.
After sinking from 10 to 22 on the UK chart at the end of January, after onlytwo weeks, British Sea Power dont seem to have the energy tosustain the their tidal wave on the album chart. Theyre still floating higheron the Indie chart, having dropped two places to four at the time.
Do You Like Rock Music? is BSPs third in five years andcontinues their penchant for juxtaposing epic and sweeping pomp pop with edgeycacophonic wanderings and indulgent leanings, a touch of musical yin and yang,that sets the Brighton quartet apart from their contemporaries.
They truly rubberstamp the Indie label ethos of doing things their way, and in their own fashionare Brit-troubadours, though serious longevity may be beyond them.This is a band made for festivals that might just follow in the footsteps of thelikes of The Coral thats where comparisons end though.
What BSP need right now is a killer single theres little here that qualifies,except the lightweight and tuneful Open The Door. Waving Flags was releasedon January 7th, but soon dropped out of the Top 40. Nevertheless, the album,admittedly after some rotation does have a certain appeal, even the quirky andpompous All In It has enough impact to keep you hanging in there.
Blast-off happens on the rousing Lights Out – bags of ragged guitar byYan (or Noble) stir the underlying thrust. Keeping the pace and power No Luciferfollows, bouncing with stadium guitar solos, while Waving Flags turnsout to be their, sort of, most accessible song.
Anthemic, epic pop at its best. Further in, The Great Skua is made forstadiums, cruising along to some deft stickwork by Mat Wood, with Atom livingup to its explosive title. In sharp contrast, No Need To Cry is as nearthey get to a balladeering, bringing out their most polished work.
File under: Not ruling the waves, just yet.
Weblinks:britishseapower.co.uk /myspace.com/briishseapower
The full list of tracks included are :
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. A Trip Out
8. The Great Skua
9. Atom
10. No Need To Cry
11. Open The Door
12. We Close Our Eyes
Elly Roberts passed away in 2011, but he was a man who was so passionate about all types of music and loved meeting his musical heroes, such as Mick Hucknall at a book signing at the Trafford Centre, Manchester in 2007.
A former teacher and also a music journalist, DJ and radio presenter on local community station Calon FM, plus appearances on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Radio 2, Elly started doing reviews for DVDfever.co.uk in 2004 and he did the majority of the CD and concerts reviews on the website.
I know also that he loved getting away for the summer to Spain and I hope that wherever he is now he is enjoying the hot sunshine and, as one of his friends has said on his Facebook page, that he is interviewing his musical heroes.