By Jay Mukherjee
Five years after the excellent Let the Dancers Inherit the Party, Sea Power have returned with Everything Was Forever, and a brand new name (having dropped the "British" part before "Sea Power"). If you are not familiar with Sea Power, well, they just happen to be one of the best rock bands in the world. No big deal.
Sea Power are known for their eclectic (eccentric?) style, having played live at the Great Wall of China, at the CERN atom-research labs, and beside a diplodocus skeleton at London's Natural History Museum. They have also been known to dress in historic garb on stage (including a guy in a polar bear outfit, dancing along with them), for having a naturalist give a talk about wild birds as an opening act, and for writing a love song to a glacier. They even wrote a soundtrack to a documentary that showed a century's worth of maritime footage around the British Isles. Eclectic, sure, but also a band with lots of imagination and interesting ideas. Not your average band, for sure.
I got to know them after seeing the band perform "Waving Flags" late one evening 14 years ago on Jools Holland's TV show and was instantly in love. I also have great memories of my 5-year-old kid and I driving down the road shout-singing along to "Waving Flags" as it blasted from my car CD player. Soundtrack of my life, indeed.
Everything Was Forever is named after the idea to "act now regarding our planet or soon reach a state where action is impossible". The album contains both the strain of that urgency, but also a general feel of melancholy and nostalgia. That melancholy permeates both the opening track, "Scaring at the Sky" and the final track, "We Only Want To Make You Happy". Nostalgia can be found in tracks like "Lakeland Echo", where Jan sings, "Turn the tape on/That's a grand track/That's a good one/Think I've heard enough/Heard enough of nothing", and "Folly", one of the album's first singles. "Folly" starts off with synths that strangely reminded me of Queen's "Radio Ga Ga", which is a great song apart from its silly title. The sound is nostalgic, just like that song, but the message is anger at those who are mainly responsible for what is happening to our planet: "And if it makes you feel better/The creeps are all gonna cook/Along with the rest of us/On this weird rock".
There are also plenty of fist-in-the-air-anthemic songs, a Sea Power specialty, on Everything Was Forever. "Transmitter" is my favorite non-single track on the album, while "Green Goddess" is another gem, with lyrics: "Yeah, money follows money/And power follows power/But this is not the only way/'Cause everybody needs somеbody", and, of course, lead single "Two Fingers" is superb too. Who can't relate in this day and age to the act of two fingers at all our institutions and guard rails that constantly let us down?
Sea Power may have changed their name, but Everything Was Forever still finds them melancholic, nostalgic, and angry ... and at the top of their game. The album's out now via the Golden Chariot label.
[Photos: Sea Power / Golden Chariot Records]