British Sea Energy, “Do You Like Rock Song?” [15th Anniversary Edition]

British Sea Energy
Do You Like Rock Song? [15th Anniversary Edition]
ROUGH TRADE

When British Sea Energy dropped the primary phrase in their moniker in August 2021, they erased the picture of themselves as a tongue-in-cheek team—a sensibility established on their 2003 debut, The Decline of British Sea Energy. With Brexit having taken position the 12 months sooner than, the band led by way of mononymous singer/bassist/guitarist Hamilton attributed the titular tweak to “isolationist, adverse nationalism” that publicly reared its head when Nice Britain made up our minds to peel off from the Ecu Union. Turmoil continues to show off itself around the area, with Europeans loathing Brits much more than American citizens. Have in mind what it used to be like below the G.W. Bush regime?

Ah, the crappy previous days. Let’s now not confuse the nostalgia pattern with a need to duplicate the entire errors of the previous—extra rampant discrimination, a loss of empathy, and inescapable irony, particularly. Simply because musicians and report labels are celebrating yesteryear with anniversary album reissues and comeback excursions, that doesn’t imply they’re endorsing each side of yore. They’re simply looking to remind us of earlier accomplishments which might be ceaselessly overpassed within the technology of social media and cultural disenchantment. And, in fact, as a result of there’s cash to be made in working a time system.

Sea Energy and their erstwhile label Tough Industry give shoppers quite a lot of bang for his or her dollar with Do You Like Rock Song?’s fifteenth anniversary version. The remastered 12-track album, which established the band as crowd-rousing colleagues of The Frames and even The Pogues, is rounded out with six B-sides, a couple of BBC reside recordings, and any other consultation music. Certainly, the captivating in-studio chatter and off-tune notes that accompany two of the radio cuts—“No Lucifer” and “A Go back and forth Out”—totally delivery the listener to the previous, and now not for only a temporary second. The bonus tracks paint a fuller image of Do You Like Rock Song?, particularly “Everyone Will have to Be Stored,” a key addition to the report and a track by which Hamilton drops the titular “rock track” time period. In the meantime, jammy cuts “General Confusion” and “Elizabeth & Susan Meet the Pelican” are lengthy, rough-sounding voyages that may’ve taken the steam out of the right kind album’s ultimate and becoming track, “We Shut Our Eyes.”

Sea Energy don’t seem to be enjoying that track (or any of the B-sides) as a part of a chain of concert events they’re staging in reinforce of the Do You Like Rock Song? reissue (the band is agreeable crowds with a hits-laden encore set as an alternative). Nevertheless, the presentations—taking place two years after their remaining studio report and primary in 5 years, The whole lot Was once Eternally—point out that the band licensed of Tough Industry’s re-release of Do You Like Rock Song? and that the quartet haven’t misplaced any in their oomph. Finally, in spite of the band’s identify alternate, “Energy” continues to be in it.

Supply hyperlink