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100

Observer Music Monthly

BSP have every right to feel content. After all, the almost men of sylvan, jagged rock, the pride of Britain's bookish, bird-watching bohemia, have made an album that's deserving of their swagger. Do you like rock music? If not, here's the perfect place to start.

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The Onion (A.V. Club)

While DYLRM? lacks the wild-eyed spits and howls of "Decline Of British Sea Power," it's definitely BSP's most rocking effort yet, replacing the sterility that plagued its sophomore slump, "Open Season," with stadium-sized bravado.

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All Music Guide

DYLRM should be a mess, but the band has crafted a wintry, nuanced, and bold collection of epic songs that integrate the sweeping theatricality of Arcade Fire-era indie rock without all of the insularity.

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Dot Music

They muster compelling music that sounds like triumph in the face of adversity, building something beautiful out of the building blocks of sadness and despair.

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Drowned In Sound

Wired with a sense of opportunity, these little Caesars continue to play mother’s favourite rather than the ostracised gurning recluses they initially cast themselves as.

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musicOMH.com

You can almost feel the wind and rain outside, and this adds to the mixture of melancholia and euphoria throughout, the latter realised most obviously on 'Waving Flags.' And that's the spirit that runs through this fine album, staying with the listener long after the final stanzas of 'We Close Our Eyes' bring it full circle.

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Under The Radar

Rock Music goes further, showcasing a fully mature band turning out immense tracks that combine the best elements from their previous works. [Winter 2008, p.80]

No Ripcord

This is another huge step forward for a band not afraid to take them.

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Entertainment Weekly

Even as the band never quite achieves the transcendent moments of its influences, standouts like 'No Lucifer' and 'Waving Flags' touch real greatness. [Feb 15 2008, p.65]

cokemachineglow

Yan and Hamilton manage to capture old clichés in new ways and that, filtered through their weirdness and idiosyncrasies, the sentiments seems new (or at least more original).

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Lost At Sea

Do You Like Rock Music? is a large, unabashed attempt at greatness, and where other bands might diffuse into a chaotic mess in the process (ahem, Broken Social Scene), British Sea Power remain, skillfully intact.

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Boston Globe

BSP has backed up its postured oddities and idiosyncrasies with a new raison d'être: to deliver the true stuff of rock 'n' roll.

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Billboard

Early on frontman Yan (Scott Wilkinson) wishes us, "Welcome for a day--or stay forever," and if you do like rock music, you'll likely choose the latter.

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Alternative Press

The result is a vivid, nostalgic traipse into what good rock bands ought to sound like. [Mar 2008, p. 144]

Paste Magazine

The band’s third and possibly best full-length leans in a bit harder than usual, and dazzles throughout.

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Hartford Courant

Opener 'All in It,' a slow-building swell of voices and guitars, sets the tone for album that's unashamed of its epic accessibility.

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Filter

The only thing odd about this genuinely explosive record is in how fearlessly it expresses it's passion. [Winter 2008, p.94]

Mojo

Briitsh Sea Power's third album proves once again there's more to them than stuffed owls and a facination with odd geological landmarks. [Feb 2008, p.100]

Q Magazine

The result is an album that balances intellectual importance with the simple pleasures if great melodies played on meaty guitars. [Feb 2008, p.94]

Delusions of Adequacy

In Do You Like Rock Music?, there seems to be a condensed clarity of vision, that vision being rock bigness and youthful enthusiasm and curing inertia and malaise, in the vein of the aforementioned past British masters.

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Hot Press

A powerful collection of passionate, anthemic rockers that will no doubt please their hardcore following whilst winning new converts to the cause.

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The Guardian

Do You Like Rock Music? is the glorious sound of a unique band going for broke.

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Tiny Mix Tapes

BSP aren’t going for a concept album here (or concepts at all, really), but you’d be forgiven for expecting one given how beautifully the collection of songs coheres into a singular piece of work and retains momentum through its movements.

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The Phoenix

Rock Music is free of both the maudlin and the mundane, and oddly rousing, too.

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Blender

Things get almost crushingly heavy, but he fights through his nightmares like he's one spastic stab in the dark from flicking on a night light. [Apr 2008, p.77]

New Musical Express

Do You Like Rock Music? might be fashionably rough around all the right edges, but there’s definitely still enough lyrical wit and musical beauty contained herein to warrant your attention.

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Slant Magazine

For all the strength of the variously loud and soft moments throughout Do You Like Rock Music?, the record is at its best when the band attempts to holistically integrate the two.

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Spin

With guitars that ring and roar and percussion that gushes and thunders, they finally turn theirlyrical perculiarities into a legitimate churn of ideas, rather than a posturing diversion. [Feb 2008, p.92]

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Austin Chronicle

Rock Music proves BSP can hold their course.

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Uncut

British Sea Power are still without a 'Wake Up' or a 'Float On' but Do You Like Rock Music? is exhilarating in its ambition, full of songs that will warm the cockles at whichever National Heritage site they choose to play next.

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PopMatters

The greatest fault of Do You Like Rock Music? is that it is a statement album without a statement, only a response.

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Pitchfork

Do You Like Rock Music? doesn't fail miserably--which at least might have been more interesting--but disappoints gently.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 57 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jim G. gave it a9:
After having seen BSP live here in Louisville, KY, my appreciation for the splendors of DYLRM? have gained dimension. It's not that these lads wield hefty lyrical ambitions with care, bringing in military history, physics, ornithology, et al--it's that they bring it in with understanding. There is something very truthful about this record that is worthy of close attention.

Charlie L. gave it a9:
This album reminds me strongly of U2's Joshua Tree. Not so much musically - though BSP clearly owes a musical debt to early U2 - but in its unique sort of ambition. This is BSP's moon shot, it's Big Statement, and it's so bombastic and intense and grand that it skates right up to the edge of pomposity and pretense. But they rescue themselves by simply never doing anything wrong. If it were less musically excellent, if the lyrics were less interesting or more standard, if the guitars rocked a little less hard, it'd be an unmitigated disaster of ego and pomp. There's a ring of authentic inspiration here, a genuineness that provides some substance to the big sounds; were it not there, it'd sound hollow and forced. A solid 9; not Echo and the Bunnymen's "Porcupine" but pretty damn good.

KG FReeze gave it an8:
No Lucifer rules. Well recorded, well played, well sequenced. Just missing sometime, and I'm not sure what it is. Maybe too overloaded. I dunno. For as good as it is while I'm listening to it, I don't find myself wanting to listen to it all the time.

Mark L. gave it a10:
I've always been a fan of these guys. The CD is without a doubt a 10. A must own is everyones collection. If you like this you should give the Duels a listen.

Freddie L gave it a10:
A classic, as much as their first album. I've had it i my Ipod since the release - listened through it 30-40 times and it still grows!

A C gave it a10:
My choice for album of the year! I know, I know were only in March but I just don't see any other album coming out this year that's capable of topping this in anyway. DYLRM is loaded with beautiful and epic rock songs. For example, No Lucifer, Lights Out for Darker Skies, Waving Flags, A Trip Out, which are all capable of someday becoming true rock classic anthems.

M M. gave it a5:
If this is considered "rock music," then I guess the answer to the question is: "Not really." Lyrically awkward at times, musically dull at times, it feels like there's a lot of filler here. Don't get me wrong: there are a handful of decent-to-good tracks, but you've gotta hunt for them.

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