For those of us who don’t like to completely reevaluate artists every two seconds, there are those bands that have a formula and stick with it. Sometimes they do it better than others, but in a world of artists like Lady Gaga and Muse where they’re constantly trying to up their own ante, a band like British Sea Power can be very refreshing.
It’s a wonder that British Sea Power has released three studio albums since I saw them live back in 2005 opening for The Killers. Sure, one of them was the reworking of the soundtrack of the 1934 documentary film Man of Aran, but you gotta love a band that consistently puts out albums. It keeps them relevant, rather than a band like Maroon 5 (I know, terrible example) – that puts out one album and then tours for it for four years slowly drifting into a place where nobody really cares anymore.
Now, I’m not comparing British Sea Power to any of these artists (Gaga especially), but I’m trying to make a point. With Valhalla Dancehall, BSP stuck with what they’ve been doing since The Decline of British Sea Power, the experimental arena indie post rock (ironically titled since it’s their first album and the most progressive of all of them). I apologize for the ridiculous classification adjectives. I figure I’d get the buzzwords out of the way in case you’re one of those readers that ‘skim’ rather than read.
Valhalla Dancehall begins on a high note, the impeccably catchy “Who’s In Control,” which led me to believe that this record would be far closer to the “dancehall” the title proposed, but after that we’re taken back to the arena post rock (abbreviated for rhythm) we’ve been hanging with since 2002. “We Are Sound” feels like a bit of a filler track, one that I’ve surely heard on 2005’s Open Season or 2008’s Do You Like Rock Music?, the former I enjoyed more than the latter. “Georgie Ray” is a soft and lovely piano ballad, “Stune Null” is a dark and perplexing track, one that most parallels the jolty beats of the first album. But the stand out track on Valhalla Dancehall is “Mongk II,” a sequel to “Mongk” off the Duets EP. “Mongk II” features Yan’s fuzzy distorted vocals, the dense instrumentation (with a banjo cameo, I might add), and complex lyrics.
“Luna” and “Baby” feature Yan’s low whispery vibrato rather than the loud and distorted tracks that came before them. They’re much dreamier too, ones that you might slow dance to in a low-lit bar in Brighton somewhere. The first single “Living Is So Easy” is by far the sweetest song on the record. Like a real good piece of baklava, whereas the rest of the songs on the album are more like cheese danishes or poppyseed muffins. “Living Is So Easy” is almost too sugary, which made it a weird choice for a first single because it is SO far outside of the darkness of the rest of the album. After that, we go from another dancehall track to punk to the experimental post rock you’d most expect from BSP, but it all fits under the umbrella of their style, whatever style that may actually be. So maybe Valhalla Dancehall won’t create waves with any monumental genre-bending genius, but it sticks with what British Sea Power does, and what they do well.
I never really got the strong U2 comparison that places like Pitchfork made (quite literally, rating Do You Like Rock Music? with a U.2… real clever, guys). Sure they’ve got the dense sound that fits into the arena rock, but so does Arcade Fire. Do you ever hear people comparing Arcade Fire to U2? No. What British Sea Power has that does set them apart is a garage rock attitude with 6-minute epic post-rock melodies and deep, oblique lyrics. And they’re from Brighton for crying out loud. That’s like the San Francisco of Great Britain – it’s laid back. That’s what I get from British Sea Power, laid-back arena rock.
Now that’s a faux genre I’ll stand behind.
