British Sea Power - Zeus

British Sea Power are, quite simply, one of the best bands out there. They write indie rock songs but do so in an inventive way, with unlikely musical arrangements and quirky lyrics on unlikely topics. In a musical world that seems to have set as its benchmark the word “bland”, they are a breath of fresh air.

Their latest EP, however, is a curious work as far as I am concerned. All the hallmarks of the BSP sound are there – the esoteric lyrics containing random name checks, the experimental guitar based music and so on. But it all feels a little forced; being random and experimental for the sake of it, rather than because the songs actually demand it. To me, the EP sounds a lot like the Fall – not in itself a bad thing, but BSP at their best are more coherent and essential than the Fall. They have their own sound; they should use that, rather than mimicking a band who started to become a caricature of itself a long time ago.

In some respects, what they’ve done here reminds me of what Radiohead did after OK Computer or the Boo Radleys after Wake Up! - they’ve lurched off in a direction marked weird, and part of the reason for doing so is to avoid having to write the sort of polished songs that made them so successful in the first place. Of course, this is an EP, not an album, and it could be next year’s BSP album will see them offering the idiosyncratic song-writing that made them so brilliant (IMHO) in the first place. But Zeus - while still being better than most modern music – is a bit of a disappointment. Ultimately there is nothing on this EP that can compare with the sparse beauty of their last album - Man of Aran. And given that album was a soundtrack to an obscure, yet oddly beautiful film, and therefore consisted of soundscapes largely devoid of lyrics, that is a bit of a cause for concern.