Words: Gareth O’Malley

Is that meant to be a lightning bolt? Sure looks like one. If so, it’s rather significant. The ‘power’ in British Sea Power is back - and back (yes, you guessed it) with a bang.

The band took a more meditative route with last year’s soundtrack to ‘Man of Aran’. Said soundtrack is now generally known as LP3.5. I had wondered how much of the atmospheric textures contained in songs like ‘It Comes Back Again’ and non-soundtrack cut ‘The Possibility of an Island’ would remain when the band returned.

Not much of that is present on this EP. There isn’t an instrumental in sight, first of all. Also, the two more laid-back tracks present have more in common with ‘Open Season’-era songs. ‘Cleaning Out the Rooms’ has a companion in ‘North Hanging Rock’, and ‘Bear’ exudes a lush dreaminess that they’ve reminded us they can create almost effortlessly - that is, until the tempo increases and a pulsing synth-laden coda offers us a tantalising taste of something entirely new and different for the band.

New and different: I’m struggling to find more apt words to describe the direction this band have taken. There are nods to past glories, all the same. The title track is the very best of ‘Do You Like Rock Music?’ given a prog-pop makeover and welded to a mind-bogglingly intricate song structure. It also has something like five different choruses. It’s seven minutes of the band at their best, and - no exaggeration - might just be one of the best songs they’ve written so far.

There are moments of sparseness, too: ‘Pardon My Friends’ is a subdued, piano-driven affair that could be accused of sticking out like a sore thumb, even on an EP as varied as this one. There’s no cohesion to this record, but then again there doesn’t need to be.

‘Zeus’ closes with two of the group’s most baffling songs to date. One is the Krautrock jam of ‘Mongk’, which struts along, driven by motorik drums and chugging guitars; the other is ‘kW-h’, three minutes of stomping electro-glam (yes, seriously), also featuring vocoders and… AutoTune. Dun dun dunnnnnnnnn.

Where the hell are British Sea Power going with their sound? Whether hopeful of things to come (that’s us) or approaching album number four proper with mild trepidation (this will be some of their fans), we’re all asking that question. And now the countdown to January starts, as we await its release with bated breath. There’s another question that needs to be answered, though: if ‘Zeus’ itself wasn’t considered good enough to make the cut for ‘W.D.’ (whatever that might stand for), just how good are the tracks that were? The mind boggles. Again.

9.0