|
ONE WAY Recommends [Issue
#15]
British Sea Power By
Ken Micallef
Open Season
(CD
Rough Trade)
English bands
have typically been masters of the grand rock gesture, whether it’s
Morrisey’s fey swagger or Johnny Rotten’s snarl. British Sea
Power carry on this tradition through a stained glass vision, their cryptic song
titles alluding to family feuds, lost dogs, sleepwalking, Anartica,
true adventures, and everything else imaginable. Though best known
for their hyperactive performances, Open Season is, at times,
so charming and resonant it could perhaps accompany the gray ladies who
lunch with the olde Queen. Full of shimmering guitars, starry-eyed melodies,
and pointed drumming that rolls over you like the wind, Open Season
also charges headlong into King’s rock, but the band’s best
moments come in dreamy songs like “Elegiac Stanzas” where the
lyric, “He found God in a Wiltshire field” mirrors the band’s
immaculate skill at blending weathered themes with bizarre outcomes. “How
Animals Work” could be the feel-good hit of the summer. British Sea Power
fall into this majestic romance regularly on Open Season, finding
myth and memory like the rest of us find change in our pockets.
|
