Album: British Sea Power, Valhalla Dancehall (Rough Trade)

British Sea Power have always aimed for the self-consciously epic, a music to match the colossal scope of such thematic triggers as Antarctic ice floes and the Great Wall of China, and Valhalla Dancehall is no different.

There's an air of the over-familiar about this fourth album, without any notable standout tracks offering a hook to catch one's interest. The closest it comes is the opener "Who's in Control", a rousing agit-rocker in Manic Street Preachers stadium-rock style, which finds the vocalist Hamilton wishing that "sometimes protesting was sexy on a Saturday night". Apart from that, it's a comfortable cargo of bilious rockers like "Mongk II" and epic balladry like "Georgie Ray", albeit a vessel holed below the waterline by the tedious stodge of the lengthy "Once More Now", which overdoes its titular promise by a good five minutes.

DOWNLOAD THIS Who's in Control; Mongk II; We Are Sound