'Like' Will Tear Us Apart - British Sea Power's 'Do You Like Rock Music?'
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British Sea Power’s third album Do You Like Rock Music? is an album I very nearly bought just for the title. I’d heard good things about it since its release, and whereas I’d also heard good things from a few friends, I have to admit I was only vaguely aware of BSP; I’d dismissed them as just one of dozens of moody provinicial British bands, the Franz-Arctic–Editor-Kooks set. The problem is, I’m not sure I was wrong to — I’ve listened to Do You Like Rock Music? a dozen or so times over the past week and I couldn’t tell you why you should buy it over, say, Favourite Worst Nightmare or An End Has A Start. I’m not even sure I could tell you it wasn’t by either of the same bands.That’s not to say it’s not good. It’s absurdly intelligent, almost to the point of incomprehension; it’s melodic, it’s raucous and it’s a wholly enjoyable album. But I can’t help but feel they were striving for something more. Occasionally you can even tell what — a lot of Arcade Fire and Flaming Lips influences are crammed in with the lost-love and lost-lunch laments, but it almost feels like a marketing exercise. They’re already known for slightly bizarre, even eccentric live shows in small, unusual, working class venues; a brown ale Cirque Du Soleil. The addition of these influences seem designed solely to make people wonder what will happen when they inevitably show up on the summer’s rock festival circuit.Google or Wikipedia — and if the first can be a verb, why not the second? — the band and two words become prominent above all others: Joy Division. The Brighton band are compared to them almost constantly. And therein lies the problem — it’s no longer about what a band or an album or song sounds like; it’s about who they sound like. Comparing British Sea Power to Joy Division is, to many, going to mean they’re either moody as hell or they’re genre-defining geniuses. I don’t know that they’re either. In fact, on Do You Like Rock Music? they’ve made such an effort to inject soaring melodies and shouty, singalong choruses that it’s much, much easier to make the case for their being geniuses, especially given the hyper-literate lyrics and subversive nods to their peers. And you could argue for "genre-defining" in the sense that they slot in to the same category as all the other UK rock bands that NME have said are cool so perfectly that you can’t help but hold them up as a paradigm of modern rock. But they fit so perfectly that you’re in danger of thinking you’ve heard it all before.British Sea Power, on their own merits, are an excellent rock band. They know exactly where their roots are, they don’t underestimate their audience and they’re not afraid to explore their options. But it’s almost impossible to describe them without referencing other bands – predecessors or contemporaries. I can’t understand how a band that is original and unique in so many ways can be put into a box so easily – "That song sounds like the Smiths, that one like the Cure, that one like Joy Division” or “If you like Editors, you’ll like BSP;" all of which are probably true. Do You Like Rock Music? is, on its own merits, an excellent rock album and deserves to be heard by lots of people, as it surely will. Buy it, download it, put the CD on and for fifty-four minutes forget you’ve heard of Editors, or Joy Division or anyone else you’ve heard they sound like. It sounds like British Sea Power — and that’s exactly what it’s supposed to do.
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