British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?

This Brighton-based quartet are one of the few borderline mainstream acts to still fully embrace an art-rock image, a fact evident here in their mildly pretentious liner notes.

But there is something undoubtedly appealing about their carefully cultivated image, playing gigs dressed like Dad's Army in that sitcom's credits, and preoccupied with this country's past, digging up the arcane, obscure and mythical in their obsessive referencing, with interests ranging from geology and maritime history, to nature notes and antique shops.

As for the music – well, this is the band's most consistent effort to date, but one that still can't help mask a certain derivativeness. However, that's in many ways part of its homely appeal.

Single Waving Flags is a sub-Arcade Fire, cod-anthemic sing-along, but elsewhere Lights Out For Darker Skies' initial cliched soaring guitars gives way to tight indie-pop.

The album's strongest songs are at the beginning and end, as it sags under the soggy weight of dull indie standards in the middle.
 
But it picks up again with the Mogwai-like instrumental of The Great Skua, the beautiful No Need to Cry and Belle and Sebastian-sounding Open the Door.

In many ways a perfect listen to wile away these inclement, dark days.