British Sea Power: Remember Me

"Remember Me" has possibly the most urgent, compelling and darn right exciting opening to a record for ages. Almost a minute and a half of pounding drums, spiky guitars and seaside sound effects, and then the vocal enters. A swirling psychedelic, fury filled eruption of a song, "Remember Me" recalls Joy Division at their finest (wasn't that ALL the time, though?) and, of the current crop of Brit guitar noise makers, are most comparable to Clearlake.

"Remember Me" is an epic of an opus of a song, with scorching, dissatisfied guitars and the bizarrely named Yan's scowling, bronchial, Curtis-like lead vocal. And yet still the fragile beauty of the melody, and the charred emotion of the lyric remain clear. Gentle B-Side "Lovely Day" by the way, is even better.

It all adds up to one of the most refreshing, vital, cobweb clearing records of the year. Who knows? Maybe their IS something in this 'Guitar Britain' nonsense. If it produces records as good as this, here's hoping.

…and we still say that, leaving us to expound upon the virtues of the scandalously tossed-aside extra track (CD1) ‘Salty Water’; a beautiful, hushed ballad that is no less sizeable in scope than its lead-off track, but quite possibly even better.

Obviously, it’s not a state requirement to love BSP (yet), but if you don’t, you’re a foolish, cold-hearted bastard, and that’s all there is to it.