They may still play on stage surrounded by branches and twigs but British Sea Power are forging ahead with new songs on their current club tour. Taking a break from writing and recording, the chance to preview new material at a sold-out King Tuts offered some new material alongside some freshened up favourites which went down extremely well.
Being honest, a few BSP support slots around their first album left this writer greatly unimpressed with the band, and this gig was heralded with a fair amount of apprehension, which was added to with ‘`Remember Me’, the one great song I could recall, being played as early as the second track.
In the end there was nothing to worry about as BSP turned out to be far more robust than remembered, with the set containing track after track of upbeat, wiry guitar anthems like a harder, less commercial Franz Ferdinand.
With a few instrument swaps between guitar and bass theres clearly a lot of talent on show, although there is a deviation when the vocals come from anyone who isn’t lead singer Yan, whose delivery far outreaches anyone else on stage.
With previous singles such as ‘`Carrion’` and ‘`Please Stand Up’` appearing alongside the new material, the best thing was that there was no dip in quality of the new material and the general moshing never abated at any minute during the set.
As a general warm-up show for fans only, this set was a real eye-opener towards how taklented the BSP are, and will certainly feature more on this writers radar.
