British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?

Pastoral, present and future combine to ask the big questions on BSP’s third album

2005’s Open Season may have been the work of a band under time constraint, but as soon as …Rock Music? begins, it’s clear that its predecessor’s more expansive elements have been merged with 2003’s The Decline Of British Sea Power’s immediacy on a record that will jostle for space with their incredible debut. It’s so good, in fact, that it might be too hard to top.

Even at their hardest, BSP’s control has been so on point they sounded like they could float away. Recorded between Cornwall, Czechoslovakia and Canada, …Rock Music? has a homeless, timeless quality that furthers such a feeling. Time, however, seems to be on their mind. The 12 tracks dovetail into each other, charting how, as singer Yan’s sees it, “we’re probably not far off living in a Mad Max film”.

It’s a complete whole, and anyone looking for the purely hard-edged rush of Decline will need to approach this as less a collection of songs, more a movement, with all the ebbs and flows that entails. And while partially removed from the overly backwards-looking lyrics of yore …Rock Music? still captures that intangible essence of something lost and, as such, remains wholly affecting.

Rough Trade | RTRADCD 300

Reviewed by Jason Draper
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