Artiste: British Sea Power
Nationality: Um, British?
Album: From the sea to the land beyond
Year: 2013
Label: Rough Trade
Genre: Instrumental, Original Soundtrack
Tracks:
From the sea to the land beyond
Remarkable diving feat
Strange sports
Heroines of the cliffs
The Guillemot girls
Suffragette riots
Heatwave
Melancholy of the boot
Be you mighty sparrow
Berth 24
Red rock riviera
Coastguard
Perspectives of Stinky Turner
Bonour Copaines
The wild highlands
Docklands renewed
The Islanders
Heatwave
Chronological position: Seventh album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting factoid: One of the few albums I know that has one track on it twice...
Initial impression: Really nice piano opening here
Best track(s): Everything really; fantastic album
Worst track(s): n/a
Comments: Another band I know nothing about, and it would seem perhaps a bad choice, as this is a film soundtrack (well, the soundtrack to a documentary) and so is all instrumental. It's also to follow the basic idea of the film, which is one about Britain's coastlines, so there's plenty of wind sounds, surf and the opening track is led in with a grave piano almost completely solo, then on a rush not unlike a seawave breaking on the coast, trumpet, cello and percussion pile in, and I find to my surprise that this is not all instrumental as vocals come into the mix. Nice sort of jangly guitar keeping the piano company before the brass slips in again, a great start to the album I must say. The next track is much more bright and uptempo, again piano leading the line but a more indie-rock vibe to it. Sounds like mandolin there, could be wrong.
“Strange sports” has a sort of vibrating guitar line and some spooky keys, much slower and statelier than the previous track, then breaks into a nice guitar line with organ backing, then a gorgeous melancholy cello drives “Heroines of the cliff” but by contrast uptempo, boppy happy guitar runs through “The Guillemot girls”, kind of almost a Country feel to it, and it's only the second track to have vocals on it. We're back then to that stunning solo piano for “Suffragette riots” before bass picks up the beat and brings up the tempo too, and “Heatwave” is a nice midtempo instrumental.
This is a long album, eighteen tracks in all, so I'm not going to describe it track by track, but generally I have yet to hear something I don't like. Vocals come back in for “Be you mighty sparrow”, which seems to reuse the motif from the opener (and title track) and indeed uses the name, so I guess you could say it's a slightly faster version of that with words, and it's brilliant. The quality just seems to be maintained all through the album, and though at this point I'm only a little over halfway there, I can't really see this dipping dramatically, if indeed at all. Just class all the way through.
I like the way the album alternates between fast, snappy rock tunes and slower, more broody and often quite expansive almost ambient music, and the odd vocal track thrown in just kind of upsets the balance enough without ruining it, kind of keeping you on your musical toes as it were. Sometimes, like in “Red rock riviera”, the vocals come in near the end, which really surprises you and always adds to the music rather than just feel like a gimmick or as if they're shoehorned in there so that the singer doesn't feel left out. Mind you, he plays guitar too so there's nothing he needs to prove. There's a real melancholic and yet triumphant feel to “Docklands renewed”, with that cello back in evidence, and we're back with that motif again from the opener for “The Islanders” before we close on “Heatwave”, which is oddly on the album twice.
Overall impression: Superb (mostly) instrumental album, very stirring and evocative and, I guess if you're British, makes you proud. Part of the heritage indeed.
Hum Factor: 8
Intention: Will check into some of their other material now.