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Track Listings
| 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 Description
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
Product Description
BRITISH SEA POWER Open Season (2005 UK 11-track CD featuring the second album from the Brighton-based band produced by Mads Bjerke. Includes the single It Ended On An Oily Stage and Please Stand Up. Housed inside a blue digipak picture sleeve embossed with silver stars RTRADCD200)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
It's always nice when a record exceeds your expectations, particularly when you're expecting quite a lot.
'The Decline of British Sea Power' is a great record that rewards the more patient listener, although many find the rawness of some of the tracks at bit hard to take.
'Open Season' dispenses with most of the rough edges, and replaces them with an expansive sound which although perhaps less challenging, is at times bold and upfront, and at others beautiful and reflective (the cello on 'The Land Beyond' being one of many highpoints). Stomping pop tunes and brooding epics a speciality.
An apparent obsession with UK wildlife and World War II may not invite mainstream attention, and even the most attentive listener won't have a clue what they're on about most of the time, but in truth this is a great rock/pop album that offers something with that bit more magic than your usual Zutons/Arctic Monkeys/Futureheads etc etc plodders.
My favourite album of 2005 by some distance
'The Decline of British Sea Power' is a great record that rewards the more patient listener, although many find the rawness of some of the tracks at bit hard to take.
'Open Season' dispenses with most of the rough edges, and replaces them with an expansive sound which although perhaps less challenging, is at times bold and upfront, and at others beautiful and reflective (the cello on 'The Land Beyond' being one of many highpoints). Stomping pop tunes and brooding epics a speciality.
An apparent obsession with UK wildlife and World War II may not invite mainstream attention, and even the most attentive listener won't have a clue what they're on about most of the time, but in truth this is a great rock/pop album that offers something with that bit more magic than your usual Zutons/Arctic Monkeys/Futureheads etc etc plodders.
My favourite album of 2005 by some distance
17 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This is a great album from Brighton's - and Britain's - most distinctive and exciting band. It is a less abrasive and more upbeat album than 'The Decline of BSP', more 'radio friendly' you could say.
Single 'It Ended on an Oily Stage' is a prime example of this, a great pop song frayed at the edges. [The fade-out reminds me slightly of Wilco's 'A Ghost is Born', a reference point perhaps]
But otherwise most key BSP motifs remain. Their pastoral fixation [The song 'Oh Larsen B', a standout track, is an ode to an Antarctic ice shelf!], angular guitar from Noble, Yan's breathless vocals.
Bassist Hamilton also has his share of lead vocals, most memorably on the closing, seven and a half minute, 'True Adventures'. Opening with peals of thunder and a general cacophony that recalls Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the track then morphs into a quite exquisite ballad - epic, widescreen rock at its finest.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This is the BSP's second album, following on from The Decline of BSP. All in all, this sequel is blander than their classic debut. The tone is generally sweeter than the first and the songs seem to blur...
That's until you really get under its skin. When you do, you'll discover every song's a carefully composed gem and they flow from one another with such sublime excellence that is seems like a steady stream of musical harmonies. The album is perfectly balanced to be up-lifting and soothing, but powerful and evocative at the same time. The songwriting's as good as their previous outing but a lack of ambition musically could have killed off this band. However, BSP somehow manage to make it work for them.
This album lacks songs with the same gusto as the incredible Remember Me, with the possible exception of Please Stand Up, a song that oozes glorious pop bliss. Other stand-outs include How Will I Ever Find My Way Home?, a song that unleashes the otherwise sub-dued guitars to good effect. Also, Tracks 7 and 8 are as catchy as hell, and the Land Beyond has Radio-Friendly written all over it. True Adventures is a fine sequel to their epic Lately and North Hanging Rock blooms and blossoms over time, but I can guarentee your personal faves will differ as all of the songs are worthy of mention.
Overall, it lacks the Oomph factor of The Decline of... and offers less stand-out beauties and Apologies to Insect Life is an unfortunate casualty as BSP attempt to broaden and mature to compose a masterpiece. Not a revolution, just a carefully-plotted evolution of a great band
That's until you really get under its skin. When you do, you'll discover every song's a carefully composed gem and they flow from one another with such sublime excellence that is seems like a steady stream of musical harmonies. The album is perfectly balanced to be up-lifting and soothing, but powerful and evocative at the same time. The songwriting's as good as their previous outing but a lack of ambition musically could have killed off this band. However, BSP somehow manage to make it work for them.
This album lacks songs with the same gusto as the incredible Remember Me, with the possible exception of Please Stand Up, a song that oozes glorious pop bliss. Other stand-outs include How Will I Ever Find My Way Home?, a song that unleashes the otherwise sub-dued guitars to good effect. Also, Tracks 7 and 8 are as catchy as hell, and the Land Beyond has Radio-Friendly written all over it. True Adventures is a fine sequel to their epic Lately and North Hanging Rock blooms and blossoms over time, but I can guarentee your personal faves will differ as all of the songs are worthy of mention.
Overall, it lacks the Oomph factor of The Decline of... and offers less stand-out beauties and Apologies to Insect Life is an unfortunate casualty as BSP attempt to broaden and mature to compose a masterpiece. Not a revolution, just a carefully-plotted evolution of a great band
Most Recent Customer Reviews
As A Whole Perhaps Not BSP At Their Best But When Its Good It's Very...
One of the most interesting alternative bands around. I say alternative because they are still something of a cult here rather than a household name but even though that following... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Sammac
The One That Wasn't 'The Decline Of...'
I have to admit I was a little disappointed with Open Season when it first came out. The Decline Of British Sea Power had an immediacy and edge that Open Season appeared to lack... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Sean Gibbins
Not Bad but not Good Either
British Sea Power's 2003 debut album, The Decline Of British Sea Power was a noisy, angry, full-frontal body slam of a record. Read more
Published 21 months ago by P. Frizelle
BSP do epic and beautiful.
This second album from British Sea Power is very different from both the other albums in its scope and sound. Read more
Published on 22 Feb 2009 by Mr. AJ Harrison
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. Read more
Published on 8 Feb 2007 by Kevin Clarke
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. Read more
Published on 16 July 2006 by Mike J. Wheeler
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,... Read more
Published on 5 Jun 2006 by Robert Stephenson
Great, catchy, modern
This is a great album with some wonderfully catchy songs. It can however be accused of sounding all the same. Read more
Published on 22 May 2006 by Ben Oliver
2 and a half stars
Middle-of-the-road. I can't see what the appeal is, it sounds to me like some half formed ideas cobbled together to pad out an album. The guy's voice is very breathy and weak. Read more
Published on 29 Mar 2006 by "mprice310"
In One Word: Brilliant.
After "The Decline Of...", I was wondering what British Sea Power would have to create to better this, and here it is. Read more
Published on 8 Aug 2005 by D. Tuffnell
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