The band have also announced a new album ‘Everything Was Forever’ to be released on February 11th 2022 along with their latest single ‘Two Fingers’. They have been very quiet the last four years but now they have new music and the follow-up to their last album ‘Let The Dancers Inherit The Party’. Leading the news is their aforementioned single ‘Two Fingers’, a song that the band describes as having a “strong hopeful intent, a desire to start anew” amid contrasting observations about racism and the social fabric of the UK.

British Sea Power are back!

With a new name, a new album, and – crucially – a fantastic new song…

‘Two Fingers’ by the newly re-christened Sea Power is online now -https://t.co/lBr2JpAeKQ pic.twitter.com/apYrAJQMpl

— CLASH (@ClashMagazine) August 9, 2021

The co-frontman Yan Wilkinson who is accompanied by his brother Hamilton alongside Martin Noble and Matthew Wood said that “The song is part inspired by our late dad, he was always giving a two-fingered salute to people on the telly – a kind of old-fashioned drinking term, toasting people or events: ‘I’ll drink two fingers to that’, to some news item or to memories of a childhood friend”.

Wilkinson then went on to say “In the song it’s a toast to everyone, remembering those in our lives and those sadly no longer here and to making the world a better place. The song is ‘Fuck me, fuck you, fuck everything.’ But it’s also ‘Love me, love you, love everything’ – exultation in the darkness. If you say ‘fuck you’ in the right way, it really can be cathartic, a new start.”

He continued: “It’s maybe interesting that the song mentions nightmare monsters from the world of [writer] HP Lovecraft. This song has been around a little while, partly because of the big interruption of Covid. Between the song being written and the album being finished, the TV series Lovecraft Country was broadcast – which took the supernatural Lovecraft and ran it alongside 1950s America and Lovecraft’s racism”.

“[Lovecraft] was a terrible racist, a white supremacist, which is why his world is there in the song, like anti-matter – something full of horror and mankind at its worst. But, alongside the negative forces in the song, there’s also a strong hopeful intent, a desire to start anew. Beyond that, the track has influences that are just inspiring – David Lynch, Cold War Steve, the Sex Pistols, Joe Meek’s Telstar, the beauty of isolated landscapes.”

You can see the album cover art and the tracklisting below. Here is the pre-order link for the LP.

‘Everything Was Forever’ Tracklist:

01. ‘Scaring At The Sky’
02. ‘Transmitter’
03. ‘Two Fingers’
04. ‘Fire Escape In The Sea’
05. ‘Doppelgänger’
06. ‘Fear Eats The Soul’
07. ‘Folly’
08. ‘Green Goddess’
09. ‘Lakeland Echo’
10. ‘We Only Want To Make You Happy’

The album will be the band’s tenth full-length studio album and will be released via Golden Chariot. It was recorded in London, Sussex and the Isle of Skye with the help of producer Cam Blackwood as well as a big hand from their fans. The recording of ‘Let The Dancers Inherit The Party’ was possible thanks to a successful crowd funding campaign which took place in 2016. Fans were offered the chance to buy products such as an ‘Endless and Irremovable BSP Rock Matelot Entrance Tattoo’, which would allow anyone sporting the in entry to all future BSP headline shows, BSP-organised events and festivals for a mere £1,500 per tat. Well, now anyone who splashed the cash will get to hear British Sea Power play new material very soon. The band will head out on a UK tour in April, just a week after the release of the album; you can check out the full schedule of the seven-date run at the bottom of this article.

Speaking about the inspiration for the album to Clash, guitarist Martin Noble said, ‘You know the feeling you get after jumping in the sea on a winter morning? We hope the new album is invigorating like that. We hope it acts as a reset – clearing the head and letting you face whatever’s ahead.’

He goes on, ‘The album was made to a background of politicians perfecting the art of unabashed lying – of social-media echo chambers, of click-bait and electronic Tonka Toys to keep us entertained and befuddled. All this can easily make the individual feel futile. But I think we’ve ended up addressing this confusion in an invigorating way, rather than imprisoning the listener in melancholy. Musically, it’s our most direct album and maybe the first one where we maintain a coherent mood from start to finish. Perhaps a little clarity isn’t a bad thing at this point. There wasn’t a plan to create an album with any particular subject matter but we’ve kind of ended up with a case of ’think global, act local’ – an album where individuals are dealing with their domestic and personal lives against a background of uncontrollable international lunacy.’

Back in October of last year, Noble gave some nuggets on the specific sound of the album, revealing via The Quietus that it will feature, ‘My dog Isla’s bark [as] the snare sound on one track, and, all the better to dash our reputation as bird rockers, we also have the sound of a curlew turned into a well-chilled electronic effect.’

The band have already released one track from the album, ‘Bad Bohemian’, which is available with a pre-order of the upcoming album; alternatively you can listen below to try before you buy.

The full British Sea Power UK Tour schedule:

6/4 – Trinity – Bristol

7/4 – Church – Leeds

8/4 – Riverside – Newcastle

9/4 – Liquid Rooms – Edinburgh

11/4 – O2 Ritz – Manchester

12/4 – O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire – London

13/4 – O2 Academy 2 – Birmingham

The tour will feature tracks from their most-recent ninth album, Sea of Brass, released in October 2015 and famed songs from their wide discography since their 2003 debut album The Decline of British Sea Power.

British Sea Power’s website offers some insight and praise for the band spanning well-over a decade:

A recent poll of BBC 6Music listeners – on the most important hundred tracks of the station’s lifetime – placed the British Sea Power track Remember Me at number nine, just above Radiohead, just below Johnny Cash. It’s a placing that indicates both the band’s longevity and the deeply dedicated nature of their audience.

BSP praise continues:

“Truly extraordinary… In place of voiceover was an exquisite soundtrack from British Sea Power – a band who were soaringly simpatico with the daydream drifts of what we were seeing.” Caitlin Moran, The Times

Their tour begins in mid-June:

15/6 – Trades Club – Hebden Bridge
16/6 – Brickyard – Carlisle
17/6 – Sugarmill – Stoke
18/6 – Fibbers – York
22/6 – Forum – Tunbridge Wells
23/6 – Old Fire Station – Bournemouth
24/6 – Phoenix – Exeter
25/6 – Guildhall – Gloucester
14-17/7 – Latitude Festival – Henham Park

More BSP website praise includes some famous industry and cultural names:

BSP have enjoyed a diverse array of cultural endorsement. David Bowie, Lou Reed, Jarvis Cocker, Radiohead, Bill Oddie, the National Maritime Museum, Bill Bailey, Jeremy Vine, Julian Cope, Stella Vine, Flaming Lips, Caitlin Moran, Keith Allen, Peter Capaldi, Andrew Weatherall, Grace Dent and Brian Cox have all run up the BSP colours at one time or another.

Watch ‘Monsters of Sunderland’ from their sixth album, Machineries of Joy:

Despite only releasing a video for the track at the back end of June, the Brighton indie rockers felt it was necessary to release a new, unofficial video, starring two former stars of television series Rainbow, Zippy and Bungle. The original video was weird enough, but the new video is just downright strange. As the lyrical content might leave you slightly perplexed, we don’t blame you if you walk away from these videos scratching your head, trying to figure out what you’ve just seen.

The original largely consists of cute baby goats running around followed by clips of angry/hungry cats with silhouettes of birds. Enjoy!

And then the second seems like a standard episode of former much loved children’s TV programme Rainbow, featuring guest vocal talent from Zippy and Bungle.

We’ll leave it up to you to decide which one leaves a more permanent engraving in your mind. British Sea Power headline the Festival Republic stage on Saturday 24th at Reading Festival and Sunday 25th at Leeds Festival. If you like the strange, you know where to be.