Product Description

'Open Season' is the second album from the quirky Brighton based outfit British Sea Power. Produced by Mads Bjerke (Primal Scream, Girls Aloud) the album continues with the band'sunique indie rock sound being likened to Joy Division, The Divine Comedy, and Echo & The Bunnymen. The single 'It EndedOn An Oily Stage' is also included.

Track Listing

1. It Ended On An Oily Stage
2. Be Gone
3. How Will I Ever Find My Way Home?
4. Like A Honeycomb
5. Please Stand Up
6. North Hanging Rock
7. To Get To Sleep
8. Victorian Ice
9. Oh Larsen B
10. The Land Beyond
11. True Adventures

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7429 in Music
• Released on: 2005-04-04
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Brighton's British Sea Power are a band that perhaps shouldn't exist in the 21st Century, but a listen to their fine second album Open Season ought to be enough to convince you that it's a good thing they do. BSP are antiquated in sound as in style – although their music doesn't quite hail back quite as far as those WWI-style military jackets might suggest, stabilizing round about the mid-'80s in empathy with post-punk-touchstones Echo and the Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes. It's a keen sense of the theatrical and the absurd, however, that ensures tracks like "It Ended On An Oily Stage" and "To Get To Sleep" are anything but museum pieces: frontman Yan – BSP don't do surnames – overcomes his slightly limited range by investing every utterance with Box Of Delights wonder, imploring the listener to "drape yourself in greenery/become part of the scenery" on 'North Hanging Rock'. That's rock'n'roll the British Sea Power way: live fast, die young, leave a good-looking copse --Louis Pattison

Album Description
Open Season is the second album by British Sea Power, the Brighton-based quintet who dress in old British war uniforms and surround themselves with taxidermised animals. Open Season has attracted big names to the helm: the majority of the album was produced by Mads Bjerke (Spiritualised, Primal Scream, Girls Aloud) and mixed by Bill Price (Sex Pistols, The Clash, Sparks). Two tracks were recorded and mixed by Graham Sutton (The Delays, Bark Psychosis) and Phill Brown (Sly Stone, Led Zeppelin, Talk Talk). The band believe that you see great things from the valley, and small things from the peak, and have aimed, with Open Season, to bring both perspectives.

Customer Reviews

A band for all seasons
With their wildly imaginative songs about God, longshore drift and Polar explorers, British Sea Power are the anti-Embrace and for that we should, well, embrace them.

In their eccentricity and quirkiness they're the spiritual heirs of the early Bunnymen, a fact further borne out by tracks like 'Please Stand Up' and 'It Ended On An Oily Stage' which feature guitars lifted straight off 'Ocean Rain.' BSP even have a similar fascination with the elements; wind, snow and ice percolate and swirl through their songs.

Amongst many fine tracks, the album's centrepiece is 'Oh Larsen B' which is powered along by a ferocious bassline.

Musically, one or two of the songs veer a little close to MOR but even when they do there's always something fascinating going on in the lyrics.

Lead singer Yan has one of those 'brave' voices which may not be technically accomplished but transmits a childlike wonder at the world. Live, he has a mesmeric intensity - kind of Ian Curtis crossed with Howard Devoto.

British Sea Power are a bulwark against the mediocrity and lack of adventure that characterises too much of what passes for 'indie' music these days.

no edge
I've listened to this quite a few times now and whilst its growing on me I still don't think this is any great shakes - definitely not life-changing music. Yes it's accomplished, yes it's well put together and well produced. But... there is no edge here at all. I can't help feeling this could be a lot punchier. It comes over as being just rather "nice". There are some good tracks (notably the last two) but to be honest its very, very samey. I'm not convinced about the vocals on this album either - altogether too breathy and weak for my liking. Not bad, but it could have been a whole lot better.

Sinking the opposition!
If you have ever read any of my other reviews, there is a constant theme throughout, my desperation at and continuing exasperation at the muck and mire of British Indie Dross, that we have to wade through constantly to find a gem. The list of nothing bands is huge but British Sea Power thankfully are not one of them.

The bands debut, the brilliantly titled The Decline of British Sea Power was equally as fantastic , its rough sound and raucous guitars, were a breath of fresh sea air over the usually polished Indie nonsense.

Open Season, is a lot more gentle and provoking , and in places Middle of the Road, However its lyrical content , poetic and profound is certainly a new departure from the norm, of shudderingly awful thre line ryhming. Indded Be Gone the albums second tracks lyrics on first listen may seem a bit shamling and ranting, but the more you listen the moreyou get.

Please Stand Up . is rousing and uplifting and superbly arranged. The standard of drumming is excellent throughout giving every song but in particular Oh Larsen B , a heartbeat and pulse throughout its even most slow pace moments

Victorian Ice, is whimsical, and totally wicked and equally ace, to quote a song line

Theres great musicianship througout, violins are used liberally but with actual effect, rather than simply as a bolt-on for the sake of it (Embrace)

If by Open Season British Sea Power are stating their intent to eradicate the british Indie Dross vermin that plagues our land, i am grabbing my red coat and riding boots.
Best tracks Please Stand Up , Be Gone, It Happened on an Oily Stage, Victorian Ice