John Vs. “Valhalla Dancehall” by British Sea Power

AND WE’RE BACK!

This is probably going to end up being more about older British Sea Power records.

I have a strong fondness for the first three albums BSP’s released. They’re the only band I can think of that has released two albums that sound like debut albums, the arrival of two different forces in music. Certainly there’s traces of “Open Season” on “The Decline,” but they’re very faint. “The Decline Of British Sea Power” is lonely night swimming head record, center of a literate desperation being turned into sound. This review isn’t fully about that album, but by god go listen to it if you haven’t.

“Open Season”s seperate existance is of sweeping weeping hope, a broad grandeur of humanity that is oddly sincere given the norm. The lazy logic says that their third record, “Do You Like Rock Music?” is a combination of the two sounds, but it’s untrue: it’s the full articulation of “Open Season.” And so my life has been waiting for the similar treatment for “The Decline.”

Well, I’m done waiting.

The problem is, it’s not “Valhalla Dancehall.”There’s certainly a few moments when it tries to be, but apparently they’re so far removed from that atmosphere that it sounds like me trying to make an album like that instead of them making another album like that. The album ends up as a loss for me, as it’s dashed my hopes that they can get back to the terrifying impact they had on their first album.

But beyond my own personal disappointment, it’s also a poor continuation of the ideas on both “Open Season” and “Do You Like Rock Music?,” although it aims squarely at the latter and tries to replicate the sweeping arena rock. As it turns out, Arcade Fire, nothing is worse than forcing music to be epic and large. “Rock Music” was huge because it was huge, and Valhalla Dancehall is hollow because it wants to be huge.

WINNER: John

WHY: This review has gone through more than a few drafts at this point, simply because it’s so difficult to describe the myriad ways this album is mediocre. “Okay” has always been harder to describe anyways. So we’re going to call it here and I am going to move on with my life.