British Sea Power - Valhalla Dancehall

The front cover is adorned with a three-legged horse, a call back to the one mentioned in ‘The Pelican’ (from 2007’s Krakenhaus? EP) no doubt but more importantly a reference to Helhest, the steed of Hel in Norse mythology, and coupled with the title it’s a wonderful visual pun. It’s the equivalent of calling your album Disco Heaven and slapping a horned goat on it. It’s not all jokes at casa de British Sea Power though, as there are harbingers of the oncoming storm on opener ‘Who’s In Control?’. Brimming with the band’s typical gusto, it’s one of their most literal call to arms. It fits in serendipitously with last year’s student demonstrations with the sheer luck Yan’s wish that “protesting was sexy on a Saturday night'' has come true. While there’s an almost passive acknowledgement in the line "Oh, were you not told, do you not know / everything around you is being sold" one would suggest the band are angry none-the-less and concerned where we are heading. If you are going to sing about protest, you can’t go far wrong sounding like a riot with the wonderful of addition of what sounds like a particularly narked crow every now and again.

‘We Are Sound’ and ‘Observe The Skies’ are the two songs that fit the mould of the chugging Replacements-esque, solid bro, indie rock that marred parts of DYLRM? Thankfully these are a cut above ‘A Trip Out’ and ‘Down On The Ground’ and diversify sonically from that template. Both employ a rattling, driving beat underpinned by some expert drumming from Wood and the occasional scree of guitar making me wonder if guitarist Noble, in a mad moment, has considered playing solos from the roof of Buckingham Palace at the end of April. ‘We Are Sound’ slowly winds down to something more melodic and quieter, much like the more reflective and cinematic moments on Man of Aran.

However the hard rocking Yan numbers and Hamilton’s reflective calmer moments don’t operate in a vacuum - the album is more than a mere collection of separate songs that don’t reflect each other. Some might argue that this was a failing of Do You Like Rock Music?, packing relentless anthem after anthem into the front of the record. ‘Stunde Null’ and ‘Mongk II’ are the record’s show-stoppers and certainly among the best songs the band has produced. ‘Stunde Null’ (The German for Zero Hour, when WWII finished) is a raging beast, with darting buzzsaw guitars turned up to rusty and a bassline you could catch tetanus off as well. ‘Mongk II’ a refined version of its predecessor that appeared on Zeus, late last year, which also hums and throbs along as the band dip their toes a little deeper in to the metronomic world of early 70’s German Progressive rock.

The next two songs take the pace down a level at end of first half of the record, much in the same way that ‘Treefingers’ and ‘New Orleans Instrumental No. 1’ do on Kid A and Automatic For The People. ‘Baby’ has a gorgeous harmony between Abi Fry and Hamilton and is surely the most (only?) delicate song to mention crap aphrodisiac “powdered rhino’s horn”. ‘Luna’, with its questioning tone of asking if you are off to disco, party or looking to get laid, is accompanied by the same style of fragile piano line that’s on ‘Georgie Ray’ which sees Yan taking on the ballad duties uncharacteristically.

The nature of partying and mass consumerism comes up again in first single ‘Living Is So Easy’ which kicks off the second side. It’s the only song that moves away from dabbling with electronics to something a little more dependent. It’s references to a Vera Lynn pigeon shoot was that was a blast, and it’s deliberately dismissive sideswipe at capitalism works better on the record than in isolation despite that earworm hook. Towards the end of the album ‘Thin Black Sail’ is one of the more gonzo, demented songs they’ve put on an album since the debut and recalls the funnel that The Coral once managed to squeeze Barrett, Zappa and Julian Cope through. Closer ‘Heavy Water ‘sets out like it could be on the Tron soundtrack but ends up being the kind of windswept close-out that could sit on Echo and The Bunnymen’s Heaven Up Here quite contently.

The final third of the record is slightly weighed down by the presence of both ‘Cleaning Out The Rooms’, as epic and twinkly as it sounded on Zeus last year, and ‘Once More Now’ which total 7 and 11 minutes respectively. ‘Once More Now’ does have a veneer of shoegaze that the band hasn’t touched on before. Coming so soon after another long song it hasn’t proved all of it’s worth to us yet though we did feel that way with some of the longer songs on Open Season at first, which it fondly recalls.

Are the band entering a period in their career where like 1970s Neil Young they switch styles and tempos record to record? It’s a trope that last year’s tour partner’s The Manic Street Preachers have employed of late to a degree and even before that I’d regarded them as British Sea Power’s slightly older brothers. Maybe they don’t need to, as this album is the nearest they’ve come to a complete collection of songs that scale the peaks of  the wonky Bowie influenced new-wave pop, the epic sweep of The Big Music of the early/mid 1980s and The Flaming Lips’s 1995 album Clouds Taste Metallic. Zeus worked very well as a showcase for where the band’s head was and should very much be heard as a companion piece to this album. Some might say that the band haven’t really done much hear to appeal to new fans but, like they say themselves after 11 minutes of ‘Once More Now’:

“Fuck ‘em”