Some albums are the definitive slow burners. British Sea Power‘s sixth set, ‘Machineries of Joy’, released in April of this year, is one such. Jan Scott Wilkinson’s Cumbria-via-Brighton art rock troupe have opened their sound further than Wilkinson’s yearning whisper would imply possible, and the impression, bettering over many addictive listens, increasingly resembles Mercury Rev meeting Neu! in the Welsh mountains, with Wayne Coyne buying a few bottles of wine from the local offie.
The title track bounces off everything from The Futureheads to Doves, Band of Horses to Joy Division with confident glee, it’s scientific view of the human condition resplendent in assuredness. ‘Loving Animals’ is a dirty, dynamic highlight, coming over all Walkmen and Girls Against Boys in its stealth menace. Apparently, a “K-hole” is a slang term for the subjective state of dissociation from the body commonly experienced after sufficiently high doses of the dissociative anesthetic ketamine’. While I wouldn’t recommend the ‘Mr Soft’ qualities of ketamine partiularly, falling down one with British Sea Power doesn’t seem so bad, soundtracked by the punkier Super Furry Animals and early-Flaming Lips as it would seem to be.
Elsewhere, ‘Machineries of Joy’ is more reflective, pastoral even, only becoming sluggish when their capitalistic inner-Coldplay pokes out its greedy head from beneath the duvet. ‘What You Need The Most’ gently celebrates Scott Walker‘s album ‘4’, with elements of Eels and Mark Lanegan in tonality and wasted grace. When in ‘Radio Goddard’, Wilkinson declares that ‘it’s time to re-arrange your heart’, you’re tempted to thank him for having done so.
[Rating:4]
