The wide-ranging nature of the band's material has led critics to liken their sound to a variety of groups, from The Cure and Joy Division to Pixies and Arcade Fire.

[3][4][5][6] British Sea Power's Yan and (Neil) Hamilton are brothers[7] and were school friends with Wood near Natland[8] in Kendal, Cumbria.

They were in a number of bands together while at school, but after finishing his exams Yan moved to study at the University of Reading, where he met guitarist Noble, who was originally from Bury, Greater Manchester.

In 1995, Yan and Noble were looking to start a band together; they recruited fellow student Alison Cotton via advertisements on the university's notice board, and the trio began performing together, initially under the name British Air Powers.

Cotton was "headhunted" by Adam Cresswell and Mike Smoughton of local band Saloon in the late 90s, and left British Air Powers before they began their recording career.

[9][10] The group played gigs and produced a four-track demo in Reading as British Air Powers, before relocating to Brighton in search of a more active music scene.

The club nights featured many support acts, including the Copper Family, a 200-year-old Sussex folk troupe and other forms of entertainment such as a 1940s fashion show.

Stages were often decorated with foliage and plastic birds and shows would generally finish with a semi-improvised song called "Rock in A", which sometimes lasted for over 20 minutes.

Their tours have often included unusual locations such as the Scillonian Club on the Isles of Scilly, Grasmere Village Hall, the Czech Embassy in London and Carnglaze Caverns in Cornwall.

This has included giving journalists grid references at which to meet them, and expressing obsessions with Field Marshal Montgomery and bird watching.

Similarly, they appeared on the TV show Countryfile in which they discussed their love of the countryside and played an outdoor performance of the track "Canvey Island".

tour (of Ireland, UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and USA), Wood injured his back and was temporarily replaced by Thomas White of Electric Soft Parade and Brakes.

The band played "No Lucifer" on the Late Show with David Letterman on 12 March 2008 and had a concert filmed for the Canadian music series Beautiful Noise.

To coincide with the nomination British Sea Power re-released their song "Waving Flags" on 8 September 2008,[15] which they also performed at the award ceremony the following day.

[16] In August 2008, the band hosted their own music festival, Sing Ye From The Hillsides!, at the Tan Hill Inn, the UK's highest pub.

To mark the ten-year anniversary of their first single, "Fear of Drowning", the band played three intimate shows at Berwick Village Hall in East Sussex in May 2011.

[22] September 2011 saw the publication on Rough Trade Books of Do It for Your Mum[23] by Roy Wilkinson (brother of Yan and Hamilton), an account of the author's experiences of managing the band and of how the family's octogenarian father became the group's most ardent fan, apart from Richard Mills.

During the first half of 2012, the band wrote and recorded new songs each month, which they released as limited edition EPs, coinciding with their "Krankenhaus" club nights.

In mid-2015, the 12th anniversary of The Decline of British Sea Power was celebrated with concerts in Brighton, Manchester and London at which the full album was played.

In late 2016 the band instituted a crowd-funded project to finance the recording of their next studio album, Let The Dancers Inherit The Party, which was released on 31 March 2017.

[39] In June 2023 it was announced that Matthew Wood had retired from the band, and that Thomas White would play drums at upcoming live shows.