An excellent album. More mellow than their first effort, but more mature as well. The song "Please Stand Up" should have had major play on radio stations all across the world. And the world would have been a better place because of it. A shame it didn't happen. Look forward to their next release.

A Beautiful Kind Of Effort That Lifts You Away From Where Ever You Are. Alive Beautiful Amazing

I just hate anyone that doesn't like this album. They have no soul.

It's the greatest work of art since......... the last BSP album!

Quality album - trying to be different to "the decline of...", which is appreciated. "Please stand up" and "The land beyond" are highlights for me at the moment.

the album have a variety of influences from beatles, david bowie mixed with modern britpop but the songs don't have personality and the "indie" feel this efort have it can make you bored of this band.

An album of explicit beauty.

fuck yeah!!!!!

What a great second album, rounded and bulked up the sound of there music, which is a nice exstension to their music.stand out tracks -first 4 and the last 7! great - north hanging rock what a beaut

Excellent album!! Smooth, melodic, mellow, poppy, sometimes nicely calm, just awesome.

excellent from start to end

I've just listened this once and a bit dissapointed because even though this is a good album it lacked the impact of the first album. Personally I prefer the songs like "Please Stand Up" and "North Hanging Rock" as they successfully recreate the atmosphere of The Decline, which made the band so special. In comparison to those, opening songs sound too pop & easy-listening.

Excellent sophomore album. Anyone who's a fan of atmospheric, intelligent, slightly unsettling rock should check this band out. Far more passionate and energizing than most of their peers and far more interesting than those other Brit bands we're told to love (Franz, Bloc, Kaiser et al).

Having been listening the leaked album for weeks I can say that this is a very subtle album. It sounds very samey at first but after a few weeks of listening, like all good albums its many intricate hooks grab hold of you.

This is a fantastic, near-perfect follow up. Larsen B!

They are good at writing nice pop-rock sounds, but they don't really stand out in any particular way. And the fact that the instrumentation sounds like Coldplay doesn't help that fact, since Coldplay writes better songs over that music.

Doesn't quite reach their first record, this one still has a handful of stellar tracks. A little samey through the middle third, but a solid disc nonetheless.

A lot of people complain that many of these “new” bands borrow too heavily from forerunner 70s & 80s bands. I don’t think this is a problem. In fact, it is why so many other people listen to them. The problem I do have with so many of these “new” bands is with the delivery of their sophomore albums. Maybe they take criticism too seriously or maybe they get rushed because so many of them seem to radically change their sound after one album. There is nothing wrong with changing your product as long as it is within reasonable expectations of what your fans hope to hear from you. For instance, every Pixies album has fast songs & slow songs, and irregardless you always know it is them. They set parameters for their music and always managed to deliver. That is why so many people love them to this day. Was it unreasonable to expect something energetic, hooky and urgent from British Sea Power? I did not seem to think so. Decline was varied in sound but had consistently good song writing on it. So arguably I am disappointed (yet again) with Open Season. I have had Open Season for two months and it has not grown on me. This album has two types of songs: pop songs and slow rushed filler songs. Overall it sounds like a different type of band. To make matter worse, all the decent pop songs are at the beginning of the album and all the slower filler is at the end which really gives Open Season at tired feel to it. So strike my expectations that this would be an energetic album. There are some really good pop songs on Open Season though. Be Gone, Like a Honey Comb and Please Stand Up are great and would have been the perfect build up to something more but sound misplaced in the generally un-hooky doldrums that follow them. So BSP partially deliver on my second expectation that Open Season would be a catchy album. Lastly, Open Season does have one or two moments of urgency but nothing like Fear of Drowning or Carrion. What the hell happened to all the urgency of something like Apologies To Insect Life? Most of Open Season is as urgent as an imminent nap. So Open Season is not what I was expecting from BSP but what I should have expected from these “new” bands (The Walkmen). Hopefully they won’t tour for too long and they will get back to writing.… Expand

It's nice to see a band pulling from the early '80s new-wave explosion rather than exploiting it a-la Killers and Franz Ferdinand. I was a fan of the debut, but I am glad to see their melodic and textural prowess really stepped up a notch. This is a much more subtle album, and strangely, much more rewarding. The melodies are breathtaking but simple. "Please Stand Up" and "The Land Beyond" are brilliant, summery anthems.… Expand

A great young band who carry forward the spirit once exuded by Brit pop stalwarts Echo & The Bunnymen, Julian Cope, and The Smiths.

A notch below their debut album, but still very good indeed. They've definitely toned down their hard edge -- nothing on Open Season rocks as hard as "Apologies To Insect Life" or even "Remember Me" from the first album. While I do miss them rocking out a bit, they've come up with some great melodies over which to sing their paeans to love, nature, and arctic ice shelves. My personal favorites at the moment are "Oh Larsen B" and "Please Stand Up" which may be their best track yet.… Expand