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Feb 10, 2022 Issue #69 - 20th Anniversary Issue By Gareth O’Malley

A lot has been made about the name change that accompanied the announcement of this sextet’s first album in half a decade, but the rechristened Sea Power (formerly known as British Sea Power) is having no trouble with that teacup-sized storm. The band’s never been particularly shy about its politics, in any case. “Waving Flags” from 2008’s Do You Like Rock Music? praised immigration and integration, while “Who’s In Control?” opened its 2011 successor Valhalla Dancehall by capturing the simmering national mood in suitably anthemic fashion. Their seventh album, Everything Was Forever, borrows part of the title of Alexei Yurchak’s 2005 book, and eagerly wears its politics on its sleeve.

The uneasy peace of “Scaring at the Sky”—on the surface, their most tranquil opener to date—is shattered by the riff-driven ruckus of “Transmitter,” on which co-lead vocalist Yan Scott Wilkinson bares his teeth: “All of this used to mean so much to me/It doesn’t mean so much anymore.” There’s a struggle between apathy and activism across much of the album, such as on the devastating “Folly,” on which Neil Hamilton Wilkinson surveys the anxiety surrounding the climate crisis and asks, “When’s it gonna happen?/Are we all fucked?”

“Doppelganger” captures the band at its most intense and brooding, while “Fire Escape in the Sea”—a shelved Machineries of Joy demo in a previous life—is a sweetly uplifting six-minute track that confronts adversity head-on with steely resolve while remaining locked in an irresistible groove. Informed by darkness, Everything Was Forever nonetheless strives to find light where it can. The six-piece enters its third decade as a band with a truncated name, but what hasn’t changed, as Sea Power sails into a new chapter, is its indomitable creative spirit. (www.seapowerband.com)

Author rating: 8/10