Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Open Season

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British Sea Power are back with a fantastic new album called Open Season, follow up to 2003's debut The Decline Of British Sea Power. The debut was a loud and raucous post punk record with a few real gems hidden in the rough. The follow up has jettisoned all of the pointless noisy bits and focused on songs - catchier than hell songs. They continue to draw from indie rock bands of the early '80s for inspiration, and as such remind me a lot of a cross between the Psychedelic Furs and Echo & the Bunnymen. Singer Yan's voice is very Richard Butler - which means it's also very Bowie, because Butler always did Bowie almost as well as Bowie. There are also moments that evoke the jingle jangle of The Smiths - more for the Johnny Marr guitar than the Morissey vocals, although lyrically they do make use of a lot of not-very-rock 'n' roll words - elegiac, ventricles and arrhythmia are all used. I had a hard time deciding which tune to share because so many of them are good - Be Gone is one of the more Bunnymen flavored tunes. Listen, love it, and go and buy it!

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