British Sea Power

Being a Wash 'n' Go musician does have it's advantages. Angus Young only ever has to remember to bring his satchel and school uniform and Iggy Pop knows he's never going to have to remember to iron a shirt.

But there is always room for a band who've got a dressing up box in the dressing room. A band who have really thought through their image.

Brighton based four piece British Sea Power are 2 albums deep into their career of being one of Britain's, oddest, most intriguing and literate bands.

The band name sounds like it should be found in the darker recesses of the lower shelf, between Railway Modeller and Practical Caravanning. Admit it. When you are in the newsagents buying porn, don't you always have a sneaky look down to the bottom shelf and Trout Fisherman?

Their stage sets are festooned with foliage and stuffed animals, their haircuts look like they've been imposed on them and their lyrics are filled with references to military and wildlife themes.

Something Wicked from 2003's debut The Decline Of British Sea Power has the opening verse.....

"Where the ancient oak leaf clusters grew/The deaths head hawk moth flew/Something wicked this way comes/The swallow is depicted there along your fuselage/Something wicked this way comes."

Musically you can trace a line through Bowie, Psychedelic Furs and Granddaddy. The Psychedelic Furs link is really in the vocals which often have that Richard Butler atonal sneer. However on a song like Blackout there's a definite Morrissey feel. The Bowie link is more for the guitar lines. They're really good and thick enough to plaster a wall with.

Given the band's enthusiasm for uniforms and songs about Field Marshal Montgomery (Favours In The Beetroot Fields) I'm a bit disappointed to see only conventional instruments listed...I demand First World War Poetry.

The band line up reads like a Public School register. Last names only. Yan, Hamilton, Noble, Wood. Report for band practice after prep! They've also upped the mystery quotient by meeting journalists at grid references rather than pubs.

There's a great performance of Carrion on Jools Holland. Yes the keyboard player is wearing WW2 style helmet. And when was the last time you heard a lyric to equal "From Scapa Flow to Rotherhithe I felt the lapping of an ebbing tide"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JF5ivWRKBU

There's also a great moving statues video of Remember Me at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Peo0s75QDR0

Remember Me has a chorus of "Increment by increment." Again it's not the standard issue pop lyric but it does know it's pop history.

The downhill rush for the bus, of guitar bass and drums, sounds like the mighty riff from Victoria by The Kinks. And of course a band like British Sea Power who revel in the imagery of an imagined England will know all about The Kinks. And as the wilful awkward obscurists they are, they must surely also be Fall fans and so will know all about The Fall's faithful version of it.

Wilful and obscure...ok then. Lately is a brevity testing 14 minutes long while Apologies For Insect Life may well be about Dostoyevsky but it's hard to tell as the only intelligible lyrics are the repeated yelping of "Oh Fyodor, you are the most attractive man. Oh Fyodor, you are the most attractive man I know."

It's got a great step forward step back bass line and the drums and guitar alternately hold back then pile in. It's a thrilling ride.

The Lonely has the line "Just like Liberace I will return to haunt you with peculiar piano riffs." A line that actually scares me...it's camply threatening, like Liberace himself or the Sopranos Johnny Sack. The song itself could sit happily on Suede's second album and it's got some of the wooziness of Bowie's Aladdin Sane album.

The second album Open Season 2005 is a bit more straightforward, with less guitars and a bit more keyboards. But there again the band are never going to be too obvious. So long as they are releasing singles with titles like It Ended On An Oily Stage.

The word "ventricles" appears in Be Gone (and being British Sea Power it actually isn't the oddest choice of word in the song) and it may be the first time it's been used in a pop song since The Bozo Dog Doo Dah Band. Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On might have been improved if only she'd been a bit more medically accurate.

New ep Krankenhaus is available as an (expensive) import but there is a free download through the bands website.

They gamely describe the lead track Atom as combining a pre school understanding of atomic theory with ancient wisdom in amplified rock music.

But they also do foliage and crowd surfing and those kind of post punk hard stares that are part Wilco Johnson part Paddington bear.