Brighton's indie rock quartet have come a long way since 2003's The Decline of British Sea Power. The band's eccentric catalog has evolved through familiar Britpop idiosyncrasies on their debut, eased into more global pop hooks on the follow-up, Open Season, and now enters the great big world of stadium rockin' indie with this year's Do You Like Rock Music?

Upon first glance, it seems as though the very notion of an indie rock stadium band is a contradiction of terms, but the phenomenon isn't too terribly bizarre, especially for British acts. Muse, Bloc Party and Editors all work the festival circuits, and all share a subtle (or overt, in Muse's case) affection for really big sound. Anymore, stadium rock is not so much a term used to describe a band's draw so much as a sound: there's a stadium rock sound, it's a genre. Luckily, writing songs that sound like this don't require a 50,000 person audience, just a sound big enough for 50,000 people.

British Sea Power are definitely writing songs actually big enough for 50,000 people. That being said, Do You Like Rock Music? is a two-sided challenge, not an album content to issue forth a simple question and answer. They are eccentric rock traditionalists, and they don't want to rock out while thinking about Czech ecstasy -- they want you to rock out while thinking about Czech ecstasy. On the one hand, the title is antagonizing the listener, not asking an innocent question. Do you really like rock music, or are you full of shit? On the other hand, BSP have made their disdain for the 21st century and the state of rock'n'roll abundantly clear over the years, and by writing an album that channels a ton of their nemeses (U2 included) they seem to be saying, "If you really like it, you'll get what we're doing here, if you don't, you might miss the point." The point being, we assume, that rock music can be jagged-edged, esoteric (there are nods to ornithology, Carlton Corsairs and British wrestlers) and anthemic, even populist.

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Antietam: Opus Mixtum
British Sea Power: Do You Like Rock Music?
City and Colour: Bring Me Your Love
Dave Edmunds: Subtle as a Flying Mallet
Dread Zeppelin: Bar Coda
Flat Duo Jets: Two Headed Cow
Flo & Eddie: The Phlorescent Leech & Eddie/Flo & Eddie
The Heavy Circles: The Heavy Circles
Hot Water Music: Till the Wheels Fall Off
Idiot Pilot: Wolves
Indian Jewelry: We Are the Wild
Japancakes: Down the Elements
Japancakes: If I Could See Dallas
Japancakes: The Sleepy Strange
Jennifer Gentle and Makoto Kawabata: The Wrong Cage
Jon McKiel: The Nature of Things
Look Mexico: The Crucial Collection
M.A.N.D.Y: Fabric 38
Michael Jackson: Thriller (25th Anniversary Edition)
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones: Medium Rare
The Out_Circuit: Pierce the Empire with a Sound
Puppini Sisters: The Rise & Fall of Ruby Woo
Robert Pollard: Superman Was a Rocker
Raymond Scott: Ectoplasm
Simple Plan: Simple Plan
Smashing Pumpkins: American Gothic
Sonic Sums: Films
Supreme Beings of Leisure: 11
The Two Men Gentlemen Band: Heavy Petting
Type O Negative: Dead Again
Various Artists: Bippp: French Synth Wave 1979-85
Various Artists: Cinnamon Girl: Women Artists Cover Neil Young for Charity
Various Artists: Droppin' Science: Greatest Samples from the Blue Note Lab
Various Artists: Rough Guide to the Music of Hungarian Gypsies
Various Artists: Shoot 'Em Up
Widespread Panic: Free Somehow
The YMD: Excuse Me, This Is the Yah Mos Def