For the past 14 years, British Sea Power have invited us to escape our current reality by retreating into a past one. Their Chariots of Fire chic is the least of it—British Sea Power records are invitations to unplug and bask in the beauty of nature, learn useful random phrases from foreign languages, and educate ourselves on forgotten events confined to history’s dustbin. (Ironically, this has the effect of prompting you to go online to brush up on the significance of, say, the German term “stunde null,” or investigate what exactly happened on Canvey Island in 1953.) Notwithstanding the occasional forays into film soundtracks and brass-orchestra one-offs, British Sea Power’s music has remained similarly impervious to the modern age. They sound forever ambered in an eternal 1984 when bands like the Psychedelic Furs, New Order, and Echo and the Bunnymen were building a bridge between caustic post-punk and stadium-sized pop.
However, the cruel irony about escapism is that, as the need for it increases during tumultuous times, so too does the nagging guilt of indulging in it. British Sea Power have teetered on topicality before—see: 2007’s pro-immigration anthem “Waving Flags”—but their new album counts as a direct response to their country’s current state, rather than an elaborate reconstruction of a bygone one. Dismayed by the black-cloud mood of post-Brexit Britain, the band designed Let the Dancers Inherit the Party as a beacon of light. It’s an album that emphasizes their most uplifting qualities: Yan Scott Wilkinson’s valorous vocals, guitarist Martin Noble’s glistening, Bernard Sumner-style leads, and—in the case of “International Space Station”—the sort of sweeping, stargazing melodies that imply the presence of a choir and symphony even in absentia. At the same, British Sea Power keep their capacity for epic bombast and dissonant digressions in check, resulting in their most focused, generous record since 2005’s Open Season.
British Sea Power albums have never been lacking for drama, but Let the Dancers Inherit the Party foregrounds a quality that can sometimes gets obscured in their detailed narratives and high-concept execution: emotional candor. The album’s central motivational anthem, “Keep on Trying (Sechs Freunde),” is built from a quirky Talking Heads-style disco groove and a warped German hook—“sechs freunde!”—that Yan lasciviously milks for its phonetic similarity to “sex,” like an over-enthusiastic street hustler trying to lure you into a red-light district peep show. But the phrase “sechs freunde” actually translates to “six friends”—presumably, a statement of solidarity among the band’s current sextet formation—and when Yan hits the cheerleading chorus, the song’s off-kilter essence transmutes into a comforting group hug.
By contrast, “Don’t Let the Sun Get in the Way” is one of the most rousing yet devastating songs in the BSP canon. It’s a shimmering soundtrack for blacked-out bedrooms that casts scenes of depression and prescription-pill addiction atop a turbulent rhythm that coils and crashes like waves into shore. And while Yan consults his trusty Encyclopedia Arcana from time to time, he pulls references with pointed contemporary resonance: The breezy, synth-sparkled “The Voice of Ivy Lee” name-checks a pioneer in the field of public relations—and corporate spin—to make a thinly veiled comment on Brexit-induced discord and bloodshed. “Kings of propaganda,” he sings, “Won’t you take another look at all the things you’ve done.”
As if to stabilize its weighty subject matter, Let the Dancers Inherit the Party is a remarkably steady album, at times to a fault. “You said the world was losing all its luster,” Yan sings on the opening “Bad Bohemian,” and so the group spends the next 47 minutes restoring its shine with gleaming starlit-surfaces, synth smears, and pulse-regulating mid-tempo motion. As such, brother Hamilton’s usual come-down contributions are even more subdued than usual, culminating in a closing, string-quivering reverie, “Alone Piano,” sculpted out of the Velvets’ “Heroin” haze. But while Let the Dancers Inherit the Party may not encourage the anarchic onstage theatrics that have defined the British Sea Power live experience, its cool composure belies a shrewd show of force. In the face of the political upheaval at home and abroad, British Sea Power offer a suitably British response: keep calm and carry on.
