100 BRITISH SEA POWER

OK, so I'm only on my 3rd post, and already I'm slacking off. I'll try to catch up over the next few weeks.

Anyway, the first of my top 100 bands is British Sea Power - prog/indie types from Brighton. They've been around for almost 10 years and are into their third album. Although I've known of them for a while, its only recently I've started to get into them. It was the singles of their new album Do You Like Rock Music? that attracted my attention, especially the chant-driven No Lucifer ("Ea-sy, Ea-sy, Ea-sy, Ea-sy") and the anthemic Canvey Island. It seems that many of their longer standing fans regard this album as something of a compromise, as they feel it lacks the experimentation of some of their earlier work and concentrates too much on catchy tunes. Whilst I love experimentation (as long as it has a purpose, and isn't just someone banging a dustbin lid whilst reciting the Cyrillic alphabet backwards) I find nothing wrong with bands wanting to compose good tunes.

Anyway, they also turned in a great session for Mark Radcliffe on Radio 2, encouraging me to go and check out their live show. I'm so glad that I wasn't put off the midnight start time on a Monday night - it was a fantastic show, full of energy, fun and controlled chaos. The final encore ended with much instument swapping, megaphones, piggybacks and was well worth staying for, in spite of the temptation to head out early to salvage an extra half-hour of sleep before work the next day.

I promised that once my list was complete I wouldn't change the order, and I'm sticking to this promise. But I have to tell you that if I was compiling the list today they would be much higher than 100, and I'm really looking forward to catching them again at the Leeds Festival this year. Whether or not they can recreate such a great atmosphere at 2pm on the massive main stage in the blazing Yorkshire sun (hahaha - here's hoping) I don't know, but here's to hoping that they can.

Recommended songs for first listen: Waving Flags, Canvey Island, No Lucifer, and Fear of Drowning