Zeus E.P.

Album Review

Zeus, a 43-minute EP, finds the always distant yet surprisingly affecting British Sea Power expanding on the lush vistas of 2008’s Do You like Rock Music? The title track, a typically meandering and energetic seven-minute epic that manages to work English celebrity chef Rick Stein and ex-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev into its first 50 seconds, offers a glimpse into what direction BSP’s next project might head. The simple answer would be true north, as that’s the cardinal point that the Cumbria, England-based outfit has had dialed in since its 2003 debut, but there’s a ray of sunlight peeking through the clouds, casting an alien warmth over the icy plateaus and abandoned whaling stations below. Zeus' two strongest tracks, the aforementioned title cut and the gorgeous midtempo “Cleaning Out the Rooms," may feel vintage, but it’s the sloppy lo-fi punk rock joy of “Can We Do It?” and the Gary Glitter-backbeat/ridiculous vocoder assault that is “kW-h” that provide the collection's most surprising revelation: that British Sea Power have a sense of humor.