The Decline of British Sea Power isn't your conventional pop record and it's not particularly a pop-sounding record from an English band. With garage rock ruling overseas and Brit-pop still making the charts in the new millennium, a four-man band from Cumbria arrived with a provocative post-punk sound brazen enough to blast away other indie rock fashionistas like Interpol and the Walkmen. The hypnotic album opener "Apologies to Insect Life" is just as intense as any Joy Division song and Echo & the Bunnymen's early work. "The Decline of British Sea Power" is a conceptual effort that breathes hard in passion. With an unlikely rock blend of classicism and narratives, British Sea Power has composed a brilliant album that's nearly perfect. It's not exactly pop, but it might as well be.