CD Odyssey Disc 1543: Belle and Sebastian

My apologies for the scarcity of reviews of late, gentle readers. I have had some commitments that have eaten up almost every moment of leisure time. I can assure you that better times (and more frequent reviews) are coming soon.

This next review is not Viking metal. That isn’t to say I didn’t listen to any Viking metal this week (because I did), I just didn’t randomly roll one to review.

Disc 1543 is…. Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance

Artist: Belle and Sebastian

Year of Release: 2014

What’s up with the Cover? A woman with crutches and what looks like some kind of…circuitry?...on her legs, looks like she’s getting ready to dance with a gentlemen with the same…circuitry?...on the side of his head. Hard to say if the woman in the background is there to guard them or force them to dance at gunpoint.

This cover confused me so much that I went and watched a Belle and Sebastian music video that uses the same actors and set. It did not help.

How I Came To Know It: I had already been a Belle and Sebastian fan for many years when this came out, so it was just me buying it and hoping for the best.

How It Stacks Up: I did a full ranking of my Belle and Sebastian albums way back in March 2014 (at Disc 603), but I only had five total back then. I now have seven, and I’ve also parted with one more. So here’s the updated full ranking:

1. If You’re Feeling Sinister: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 591)
2. The Boy With the Arab Strap: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 540)
3. Push Barman to Open Old Wounds: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 1242)
4. The Life Pursuit: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 603)
5. Write About Love: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 301)
6. Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant: 2 stars (reviewed at Disc 61)
7. Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance: 2 stars (reviewed right here)
8. How To Solve Our Human Problems: 2 stars (reviewed at Disc 1497)

Ratings: 2 stars

Listening to “Girls in Peacetime…” feels like being in some indie romance where the characters spend a lot of their time staring out the window of a tram, idly thinking about their troubles. The energy is there, and the bustle of the city as well, but it is an absent-minded energy, rather than an immediate one.

There is also what feels like a very conscious effort to squeeze dance club beats into the songs. While I admit this gives the album a lot of energy, I mostly found it annoying. “Enter Sylvia Plath” is particularly egregious and sounds like something you’d hear at a runway show on Fashion TV back in the nineties, accompanied by lots of unwearable clothes, art makeup and the thousand-yard stares of long-limbed women. Hmm…now that I think about it, that’s not all bad. “Play for Today” subs in a more eighties feel, but still puts your mind at the side of the same runway.

A bigger problem with both songs is their length (6:48 and 7:33 respectively). The beats are already a bit repetitive and combined with how long you’ve got to listen to them, things become a bit of a slog. That’s generally true of the record, which clocks in at over 60 minutes total, despite only twelve tracks. For a pleasant and upbeat bit of pop it really takes its time getting nowhere terribly interesting.

For all that, there are some serious bright spots on the record, most of all the single, “Nobody’s Empire”. This tune is one of Belle and Sebastian’s all-time best. No weird eighties or nineties dance thump, just their signature ability to deliver an inspiring lilt of a pop hook. At the end of each verse there is the most delightful drop-down that helps frame everything else. The repetition of that drop-down slowly pulls your ear from the melody of the piano down into the gorgeous bassline pinning the song together. This song is inspiring, uplifting and more fun to listen to on every repetition.  

The rest of the record is solid as well, despite some of its shortcomings. It isn’t as good as some of B&S’s classics, but it is an easy breezy listen if that’s what you’re in the mood for. I guess I wanted a bit more than that, but I’ll be keeping it because it’s good for a “during a dinner party” mix, if we ever threw dinner parties. Which we don’t. O, bother.

Best tracks: Nobody’s Empire, Ever Had a Little Faith

CD Odyssey Disc 1497: Belle and Sebastian

I’ve had a spell of bad luck on my album rolls of late, making the decision to give away or sell three of the last eight albums I’ve reviewed, including this next one.

Disc 1497 is…. How to Solve Our Human Problems

Artist: Belle and Sebastian

Year of Release: 2017/2018

What’s up with the Cover? I believe it is a bunch of fans who got a chance to be on the cover, which is pretty neat for the fans, but doesn’t really do it for me in terms of cover art.

How I Came To Know It: I have been a Belle and Sebastian fan for years, so this was just me buying their latest and hoping for the best.

How It Stacks Up: I have eight Belle and Sebastian albums and “How to Solve Our Human Problems” comes in at #8; a well-deserved last place finish.

Ratings: 2 stars

Long-time readers will be familiar with my assertion that the vast majority of double albums should have been a single album with half the songs left on the studio floor. With “How to Solve Our Human Problems” Belle and Sebastian have created a sub-genre of this: a full-length album that should have been a single EP.

This makes some sense, given this record was originally released as three separate EPs, before later being amalgamated into a single LP. I thought I was exceedingly clever for holding out for the combined release, but in the end all I did was subject myself to three times the annoyance.

I expect a certain level of saccharine pixie pop from a Belle and Sebastian record, but this experience is usually enriched by first rate melodies and lyrics. On “Human Problems” you get all the empty bounce without the usual gravitas and emotional honesty that makes their work meaningful and relatable.

The album has a clear seventies throwback quality, but not the good part of the seventies. Think the worst of seventies AM radio pop, played in your parent’s station wagon on a stretch of road where the aerial is only capable picking up one station. Like that road trip, you can choose to swap over to FM seventies radio. The record has that covered as well, with dreamy, stoner jams from the FM side of the dial, but once again…the worst the genre has to offer. Guitar solos played inside stormwater culverts, and arrangements so saturated they struggle to make a choice and stick with it.

The album’s low point is “Everything is Now,” a boring anthem that goes nowhere and takes its time getting there. That doesn’t dissuade the band however, who include two different versions. Part One features one of the most soporific organ noodles I have ever heard.

Finally, two-thirds of the way through we reach the third EP section of the album, which stirred me from my slumber to provide some late-record joy. This doesn’t happen until song #11, and I admit that by then I was not in the mood to be amused. Nevertheless, “Poor Boy” kicks off what was once “Volume 3” with a funky groove I cannot deny.

Still intent on their own destruction, Belle and Sebastian immediately follow up that momentum with Part Two of “Everything is Now”. Enough time had passed, that the horror of Part One was now just a bitter “did I eat too much garlic?” taste in my mouth, but its return immediately regurgitated all of the unpleasantness of the original experience. Is “Part Two” better than Part One? Yes, it is, but not sufficiently better for me to enjoy the experience.

“Too Many Tears” follows. It is overblown with a lot of musical concepts, but the horns are infectious give the tune a nice anthemic quality. Following that we have “This is an Everlasting Song” which gets the band doing what they do best: wan and thoughtful melodies that trip along dreamily.  The record ends with “Best Friend,” a great tune with the whimsical narrative quality you’d expect on earlier records like “The Life Pursuit.” (Reviewed at Disc 603). This is the Belle and Sebastian I have grown to love; music to make an indie romance film to. Unfortunately, Vol. 3 came to me two volumes too late to fully recover from the earlier failures.

It felt like Belle and Sebastian was trying to recapture the glory of their early EP days. Those early EPs were combined in 2005 into a single album called “Push Barman to Open Old Wounds” (reviewed at Disc 1242) and the result is brilliant. I heartily recommend that incarnation of the experience. As for “How to Solve Our Human Problems” I recommend the oppositive experience: find yourself a copy of the lovely Volume 3, and give the first two-thirds of the compilation a wide berth.

Best tracks: Poor Boy, Too Many Tears, This is an Everlasting Song, Best Friend

CD Odyssey Disc 1242: Belle and Sebastian

It is my first day of four days off and I decided to get an early start by writing a music review! This next one took a while because it was long and also new to me, meaning I needed a bit more time to grok it in its fullness.

Disc 1242 is… Push Barman to Open Old Wounds

Artist: Belle and Sebastian

Year of Release: 2005 but featuring music from 1997-2001

What’s up with the Cover? Is that the titular barman on the left? He does not appear to be pushing, more like studiously ignoring. The lovely couple in the lower right is not on the same page. She seems drawn to the barkeep’s aggressive disinterest, whereas he is more interested in the camera.

How I Came to Know It: My friend Chris’ son Kevin is now a grown-assed man in his own right. A while back Kevin and I were talking music and, hearing that I liked Belle and Sebastian, he recommended I check out this record. So…I did. There is hope for today’s youth after all. Thanks, Kevin.

How It Stacks Up:  When I reviewed “The Life Pursuit” back in 2014 I thought I was done with Belle and Sebastian at five albums. Since then I’ve purchased three more so now have eight. I debated about whether “Push Barman…” qualified, because it is technically a compilation of seven different EPs of 3-4 songs each released from 1997-2001, not a record in its own right. While this might qualify as a “best of” the fact that they didn’t leave anything out gives the record no curating advantage. For this reason I shall stack it up! Out of eight Belle and Sebastian albums I rank it…3^rd.

Ratings:  4 stars

Double albums are a dangerous undertaking. It isn’t often that a band can maintain consistent quality over that length of time, and that many songs. “Push Barman to Open Old Wounds” manages the feat, struggling at times under the weight of 25 songs but ultimately staying upright. How do they do it? Volume! Also, excellence.

I had seen the individual EPs that collectively comprise this record as they were released but could never bring myself to spending $10 for 4 songs. “Push Barman…” makes me both regretful and happy about that decision. I regret not having this music in my collection sooner, but I’m happy to have them all now in such a convenient package. This is particularly true in a time where my addiction to music has led to a dearth of shelf space.

Sometimes a band’s very early work can be disappointing, with half-formed ideas or poor production (the latter often the result of limited financing). Belle and Sebastian suffer from neither deficiency. The production is a bit simpler than what would come later but the mixing is excellent on all these EPs, with a crisp clear separation of sound that is full and round but gentle enough to serve the whimsical pop songs the band creates.

As for the songs, Belle and Sebastian have an art for writing a pop melody that rivals McCartney. The songs don’t have the same ear-worm quality, but they have the same effortless breezy lilt. They feel like it has always existed, rather than having been slowly coaxed out of careful, considered songwriting.

Stuart Murdoch’s vocals are airy and light, almost adolescent, if adolescents could speak with the world-weary wisdom of middle-age. His band has an orchestral quality, precise and energetic without ever lurching or reaching for a note. These songs can get pretty twee, with their artful observations on ordinary life and all the “feels” it can give you, but they do it so well you never feel manipulated.

Add to this the band’s talent for knowing just what instruments are needed to fill in the colour and you have a record that has stood the test of time. Sometimes piano rules, sometimes guitar and sometimes a horn section. On “Lazy Line Painter Jane” a reverberating guitar and the Kim Carnes-like vocals of gust singer Monica Queen give the song an early eighties anthem quality. It is just what it needs. On “Photo Jenny” a slow strum on what I think is a Rickenbacker gives the song most of its full and bright sound, and the horn section fills in the rest.

There are a couple experiments. The spoken word in “A Century of Elvis” feels like you are trapped in some Scottish airport bar having to hear a drunk at the table next to you tell about that time he met Elvis and “La Pastie de la Bourgoisie” is overwrought and the efforts to throw a French phrase in feels affected.

However, these moments are the exception, and the album overall has a surprising capacity to maintain its energy and continuity despite its disparate origins. It isn’t often I heap praise on a double-album, but this is one of those times.

Best tracks: Dog on Wheels, The State I Am In, Lazy Line Painter Jane, Photo Jenny, Beautiful, I Know Where the Summer Goes, The Gate, Slow Graffiti, Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It, I’m Waking Up To Us

CD Odyssey Disc 603: Belle and Sebastian

I’m out of bed later than planned after a Saturday spent with friends where the fun started early and went late. I am now paying a bit for the fun that was had, but I regret nothing.

Disc 603 is….The Life Pursuit

Artist: Belle and Sebastian

Year of Release: 2006

What’s up with the Cover? Three young women. This cover is not much to look at, but inside the three women are dressed up in school uniforms with very short plaid skirts. I recommend this approach for all musicians – it is definitely better than a bunch of band photos.

How I Came To Know It: I was already a fan of Belle and Sebastian and though I don’t religiously buy their records I got this one after I heard a couple of the same songs on Stuart Murdoch’s 2009 side project, “God Help the Girl.”

How It Stacks Up:  This is a strong Belle and Sebastian album. It is equal to “Boy with the Arab Strap” but very different in style. I’m going to put it third out of the five albums I own but really it is in a statistical tie with “Arab Strap”.

And since this is the last review of Belle and Sebastian in my collection (at least for now) here’s the full list.

1. If You’re Feeling Sinister: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 591)
2. The Boy With the Arab Strap: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 540)
3. The Life Pursuit: 4 stars (reviewed right here)
4. Write About Love: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 301)
5. Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant: 2 stars (reviewed at Disc 61)

Rating:  4 stars

As a rule, Belle and Sebastian can be a bit pale and wan but on “The Life Pursuit” they lighten up both musically and lyrically.

Gone are songs about having a stroke at the age of 24, or being raped in the chalet lines, and instead we have “Another Sunny Day” and “Funny Little Frog” that are as whimsical and carefree as their titles suggest.

“Funny Little Frog” is one of the two songs that also appears on “God Help the Girl” (the other being “Act of the Apostle II”).  It is interesting to hear these songs sung by a man, and the arrangements are sufficiently different to keep them fresh. That said, I prefer the versions on “God Help the Girl.” Maybe it is because I like them sung in a female voice (Belle and Sebastian songs tend to be pretty high in the register) or maybe it is just that I heard the remakes before I heard the originals.

There is plenty on “The Life Pursuit” to love, however. The album is up-tempo and it gets your head nodding along. I was caught at least a couple of times playing air guitar or slapping my thigh while waiting at a red light when a particularly upbeat song came on.

The album paints little pictures that create a feeling of nostalgia before the experience is even over. It is like the band knows that the everyday experiences we have now will magnify and seem that much more important later in life. Last night Sheila and I were looking through her old high school yearbooks. Seeing yearbook pictures always brings back a flood of very specific memories even when it isn’t your yearbook. Listening to “The Life Pursuit” had a similar effect on me.

Even though I have no direct knowledge about what these songs are about, they are so cleverly constructed they feel like my own stories. Also for a band that has been around as long as Belle and Sebastian have been (ten years at the time this album came out) they have an exceptional capacity for capturing what youth feels like in all its joyful abandon. The record reminds me that spending our youth carelessly isn’t wasteful, it’s liberating.

Musically, the song structures reminded me strongly of later Beatles, minus all the drug-inspired nonsense lyrics. Instead, we get clear pictures of characters like young Sukie, who likes to hang out in the graveyard and attend art school, or all the various characters (brokers, nurses and drunks) passing through Mornington Crescent.

There are other influences as well, including the ubiquitous (to indie music) homages to sixties folk pop, a little bit of Motown and on one song (“Song for Sunshine”) even some funk that wouldn’t be out of place on an early Red Hot Chili Peppers album.

This record didn’t really teach me anything but it lightened my heart and put a smile on my face every time I played it – something I’ll be doing a lot more in the future.

Best tracks: Another Sunny Day, Dress Up In You, Sukie in the Graveyard, Funny Little Frog, Act of the Apostle II, For the Price of a Cup of Tea, Mornington Crescent

CD Odyssey Disc 591: Belle and Sebastian

I went to the hand clinic today (turns out there is a clinic dedicated just to hand injuries – three locations, no less!  Truly, we live in the future). Turns out I have ligament damage in my thumb, which is why it is taking so long to heal.  I’m feeling the pressure of the Ulti season coming, and also the loss (however temporary) of playing the guitar, all because I thought I could do some stupid dance move I used to do when I was 25.

It is annoying, but at least now I have a treatment plan, which for “rub dirt on it” types like me is a big step. Fortunately my ability to listen to music requires no thumbs, so here’s the latest effort on that front.

Disc 591 is….If You’re Feeling Sinister

Artist: Belle and Sebastian

Year of Release: 1998

What’s up with the Cover? A young woman sits pensively, presumably overwhelmed by her most recent reading of Kafka’s “The Trial.”  Oh, the humanities.

How I Came To Know It: After being introduced to Belle and Sebastian via “Boy and the Arab Strap” (reviewed at Disc 540, I decided to try another one of their albums and I went with “If You’re Feeling Sinister” because it came chronologically right before “Arab Strap” (when drilling through a band’s discography it is usually better to err toward the beginning, not the end).

How It Stacks Up:  We have five Belle and Sebastian albums.  Of the five I’ll put “If You’re Feeling Sinister” right at the top, at number one. Primo.  None better, etc.

Rating:  5 stars

When life gives you lemonade, sometimes it is best to just dance and sing amid the lemon trees.  That’s what listening to Belle and Sebastian feels like, and “If You’re Feeling Sinister” is them at their best.

This is an album that makes me feel like I’m 25 again.  Back then everything seems so emotionally hard but at the same time there is a confidence– or failing that defiance – that sees you through the rough spots.  If it all feels a bit unreal, that’s OK, because dreams teach us important lessons too.

The youthfulness is present in the album’s musical approach as well, which is upbeat and lively.  The bass lines really pop (especially on “Like Dylan in the Movies”), and the songs feel like they are jumping on the front of every beat. The approach fills you with energy and makes you want to do a twirl around lamp-posts (I regret engaging in no twirling around lamp-posts on this listen, but in my defence it has been a bit too cold this week for twirling).

Twirling or not, the questions of what the hell to do with your life remain central to the record (note to youth – these questions don’t dissipate with age). Authority figures on “If You’re Feeling Sinister” rarely hold the answers.  An old veteran on a train (“Me and The Major”) suggests young people should join the army and despite an emotional connection to the old man the song begins with these limiting lines:

“Me and the Major could become close friends cause we

Get on the same train and he wants to talk

But there is too much history, too much biography between us.”

Later on the title track wisdom is sought in the pulpit, but again the answers provided don’t speak to the questions youth is asking.  I love this song and how it builds backward, starting by revealing the young and frustrated ‘walking to their death’ and only later revealing the advice given to them by “the vicar or whatever’ (great line) relating to the afterlife, when they were actually asking questions about their current lives, such as:

“How and why and when and where to go

How and why and when and where to follow.”

These aren’t questions someone else can answer of course, but the angst that we feel wishing there were just a blueprint for it all is beautifully captured in some of the most thoughtful pop music I’ve heard.

That thoughtful music has a lot in common melodically with sixties folk music, particularly Simon and Garfunkel.  And although not really in his style, “Me and the Major” features some harmonica solos reminiscent of early Bob Dylan.

Throughout it all there is Stuart Murdoch’s amazing voice, airy, pale and wan as befits the material, but never maudlin or weak as a result.

The album ends with one of my favourite songs, “Judy and the Dream of Horses.” It begins so quietly you can hear the sliding fingers up and down the acoustic guitar at the beginning (I don’t always like that, but it works here). It is the story of introspective Judy and the song she wrote about her dream of horses and how ‘she never felt so good except when she was sleeping.’  As someone who got his last two book ideas from dreams, I can relate.

And for all the sadness and loneliness and lack of answers, “Judy and the Dream of Horses” is the perfect summation to this album; timid at first, but building in tempo and confidence.  This record is not afraid to explore the hard questions, accept the lack of definitive answers for most of them, and yet celebrate the real gift, which is the process of puzzling that out. And it does it all in the form of a kick ass ear-worm of a pop song that can get singing along out loud on a city street.  The record doesn’t just dream, it invites you to dream along with it.

Best tracks: I like all the tracks.  In fact, I was going to give this album four stars, but when I got to this point of the review I couldn’t decide which songs I didn’t want to include – at which point I realized I probably had a five star album on my hands.

CD Odyssey Disc 540: Belle and Sebastian

I’m just back from a disappointing workout.  I pulled a groin muscle playing Ultimate on Saturday and it is still quite tender, so I can do weights but no running.  Also, my headphones (the good ones, not the work ones) were acting up today with both low volume and crackle.  Luckily it turns out it was just a low battery that I replaced.  If only my body had a similar fix.

Fortunately, good music suffers no such degradation; it just stays good over time.  Here’s some of that!

Disc 540 is…. The Boy With the Arab Strap

Artist: Belle and Sebastian

Year of Release: 1998

What’s up with the Cover?  A nineties hipster has been stabbed through the heart by a spear.  He seems to be doing remarkably well, all things considered, or maybe it just happened and he hasn’t started bleeding, etc.  Like other album covers it looks like a one of those random pictures on a Jones Soda bottle, albeit a bit more violent than usual.

How I Came To Know It:  This album was my first Belle and Sebastian album – a gift from Jennifer and Cody many years ago.  Since then, the band has become a favourite, so many thanks to Jenn and Cody for putting me on to these guys.

How It Stacks Up:  My Belle and Sebastian collection is far from complete, although since I reviewed “Write About Love” back at Disc 301 I’ve bought another and now have five of their eight studio albums.  Of those five I would put “Arab Strap” second best, behind only “If You’re Feeling Sinister.”

Rating:  4 stars

Sometimes Belle and Sebastian remind me of those kids dancing around in “Nightmare on Elm Street” – you know the ones, they hold hands and happily sing disturbing children songs like:

“One, two, Freddy’s coming for you.

Three, four, better lock your door.”

It is all happiness and light until you listen to what they’re saying.  Belle and Sebastian have a similar effect although the music is way better, and while depressing, no one ends up getting slashed with a five bladed gardening glove.

Belle and Sebastian’s strength is in their melodic song writing.  Light and carefree, it traipses along in sprightly fashion, often emphasizing the first beat, making it feel like it really wants to get somewhere.   This is music that makes you want to spread out a picnic blanket and share a glass of wine (sparkling, because the music will make you want to feel the bubbles) and relax.

Songs like “Sleep the Clock Around” and “The Boy with the Arab Strap” exemplify the experience, combining high, vulnerable vocals, an insistent beat, sixties pop piano and hints of trumpet.  This song – like much of the album – will make you want to dance on a jetty with that pixie girl from a romantic comedy you just watched.  I’m thinking Isla Fisher or Anna Kendrick, but I’ve got a thing for Isla and Anna.  Feel free to insert whoever best matches your version of the vision.

But amidst all the joy, as you do a twirling airplane dance, arms extended (and this music will drive you to such infectious fun) there will be something nagging at your consciousness.  A few minor chords here and there are hinting at thorns among the flowers. 

Then you’ll start catching snippets of the lyrics.  First, just fragments of sentences like in the song about hanging out at the beach called “Ease Your Feet Into the Sea”:

“Maybe if I shut my eyes

The trouble will be split between us.”

“What’s this? Trouble?” you say, “a minute ago they were dangling their feet in the sea and making sandwiches!”  Then, over repeat listens you’ll realize most of the songs have some terribly sad quality to them.  You’ll start brushing the pretty cobwebs of the melody aside and hearing whole stanzas.  From “Sleep the Clock Around”:

“And the moment will come when composure returns

Put a face on the world, turn your back to the wall

And you walk twenty yards with your head in the air

Down the Liberty Hill where the fashion brigade

Look with curious eyes on your raggedy way

And for once in your life you have nothing to say

And could this be your time when somebody will come

To say ‘Look at yourself, you’re not much use to anyone.’”

Whoa!  This is no pixie girl dream, this is music filled with deep emotional doubt, wrapped in melodic sugar to help it go down easier.  It is like hearing a bird singing beautifully and then realizing it is a song looking for a lost mate that won’t return.

The album is a tasteful twelve tracks and forty-two minutes, and for the most part avoids wallowing in its own melancholy.  By the time you get to the final track, “Rollercoaster Ride,” you’ll realize you’ve been on one yourself, lifted up by the one aspect of the music, and then brought back to earth by sober self-examination.  It doesn’t mean you won’t still dance on the jetty with Isla and Anna, it just means you’ll do it with both eyes open now; joy is fleeting, but that’s part of what gives it value.

Best tracks (although they could use shorter titles):  Sleep the Clock Around, Is It Wicked Not to Care?, Ease Your Feet Into the Sea, Dirty Dream Number Two, The Boy with the Arab Strap, Rollercoaster Ride

CD Odyssey Disc 301: Belle and Sebastian

After the power and majesty of Black Sabbath, it was quite a jump to the breezy, summery sounds of this next record.

Disc 301 is...Write About Love

Artist: Belle and Sebastian

Year of Release: 2010

What’s Up With The Cover?: Yet another "Jones Soda" type cover from Belle and Sebastian, who consistently do not feature themselves on their album covers. This cover is a good depiction of the album title, as a woman looks out the window pensively, pen in hand, no doubt figuring out just what she will write about love.

How I Came To Know It: I already had three Belle and Sebastian albums, so this one was just me buying their new release. I keep meaning to buy a couple more of their albums, but when I'm in the record store it slips my mind.

How It Stacks Up: I have four Belle and Sebastian albums, I would say this is right in the middle, either 2nd or 3rd, depending on how I'm feeling about "The Boy With The Arab Strap" at any given moment.

Rating: 3 stars.

As I noted way back when I reviewed "Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant" at Disc 61, Belle and Sebastian are a Scottish indie pop band, known for their sing-song stylings coupled with sometimes disturbing lyrics.

"Write About Love" is a much more polished effort than their previous albums, but I don't mind that at all. I often wonder why certain types of music (notably punk and indie) pride themselves on being roughly produced. I can see why they would want to avoid over-production, but having good production only helps the music.

This record has excellent production, and reminds me strongly of lead man Stuart Murdoch's side project, "God Help The Girl" released the year prior. "God Help The Girl" is a superior album to "Write About Love", but I'll talk about it when I roll it.

Having recently reviewed an album by The Elected, which boasts a similar sound, I found myself comparing this album to that one in my head. "Write About Love" comes out clearly on top, and most of the songs are excellent.

If "The Elected" is the soundtrack for disaffected young British boys, than this is the album for those same boys when they grow up and go to college, and find out that it is perfectly OK to be a little odd - in fact, colleges are full of girls who are attracted to slightly odd boys. Just remember that while slightly odd is OK, don't be creepy.

Belle and Sebastian are masters of writing the pop hook, and the songs on "Write About Love" are catchy, and have a festive high tempo feel that is reminscent of sixties pop music. The songs make you feel like driving around in a convertible with the top down in summer time. Fortunately I can do exactly this, in my manly Stormy Blue Mica Mazda Miata. OK - it isn't that manly, but neither is this music, and it is still good.

Lyrically, the record is better than most of Belle and Sebastian's earlier work, if for no other reason than they are not purposely obtuse. Where there is room for interpretation on what a song is about, it serves only to add interest, rather than to frustrate the topic in the interests of clever phrasing.

One noteable exception is in "Calculating Bimbo". Despite the jarring sound of the title, the song was drawing me in until right near the end, where Murdoch sings:

"If someone else is near me
You scuttle up the pavement
It's no one that I care for
I pause for an effect
You calculating bimbo
I wish you'd let the past go."

Passable lyrics, except that the band can't resist actually pausing after singing "I pause for an effect" - thus demonstrating how they are...pausing for effect (duh). It is the overly clever type of line that always infuriates me with this type of music. Frankly a talented band like Belle and Sebastian is good enough on their own, without nodding and winking at their audience like that.

Contrast this with the perfect combination of whimsy and thoughtfulness on the masterful "The Ghost of Rockschool", and all is forgiven, however. "The Ghost of Rockschool" has B&S doing what they do best, lilting melodies, soft horns tastefully in the background, sparse production and gentle, beautiful vocal harmonies:

"Everything hums as the blue heart turns
And the blue girl's dawn
Is when the sun goes down
My story tonight
Is from your solitude heights
I have a window on your constellation"

The lyrics aren't brilliant, but they have a logical flow, and are phrased perfectly into the music, without any pretense or gradeschool silliness.

This is a solid record in most respects and if not for the occasional clunker, I was tempted to give it four stars. Still, I'm going to stick with three.

Best tracks: I Didn't See It Coming, Write About Love, The Ghost of Rockschool, I Can See Your Future

CD Odyssey Disc 61: Belle and Sebastian

The next entry on the Odyssey has a great album name.

Disc 61 is...Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant

Artist: Belle & Sebastian

Year of Release: 2000

How I Came To Know It: I was actually bought a Belle & Sebastian album for my birthday seven or eight years ago. This album (for brevity's sake I'll call it "Fold Your Hands") is me drilling through their back catalogue.

How It Stacks Up: I have three of Belle & Sebastian's albums. I think this one is definitely third on this list. I'd like to get Tigermilk, as I don't have that one, but I haven't been keen of late, and have been going in a different direction.

Rating: 2 stars with a thumbs up.

Belle & Sebastian are a band from Scotland, and in the oughts are one of the chief musical exports from that country. In the indie/pop genre they seem to be a pretty big thing, since most music lovers know who they are, despite my never hearing them on the radio.

Then again, I never listen to the radio, so who knows if they are on it. I hope not.

I like this band because they have a cool mix of poppy upbeat songs with lyrics that are at times disturbing.

Consider a flighty pop song like "The Chalet Lines". The song is so gentle it might be a few listens before you really pick up on the lyrics. You start to hear them, and they go something like this:

"He raped me in the chalet lines
I had just said no for the final time
Although it's last month it's like yesterday
I missed my time, I don't think I could stand
To take the test, I'm feeling sick
Fuck this, I've felt like this for a week
I'd put a knife right into his eyes."

Actually, they're not something like that - that's them exactly. Yikes.

Visually, Belle & Sebastian album covers always remind me of Jones Soda bottles; they seem to have no connection with either the band. Just some random photo. See the young, sleep deprived girl above, clutching her book in the mirror. Why? Why? There is no right answer.

On the back of "Fold Your Hands"' liner notes there is another photo (couldn't find it online) featuring a bunch of folks dressed in 30s clothing, as well as a guy in a gorilla suit holding a platter. The picture's caption reads, "Please don't let them make me a monkey butler."

I don't know exactly what they're getting at, but at face value, I agree. No one wants to be forced to be a monkey butler. The suit is hot, and the pay is probably low. Also, you are probably blamed for breaking the china, even though it slips from your fingers because you are wearing a monkey costume. But I digress...

Anyway - somewhere between Kris Kristoffersen's constant decision to have only a giant picture of his head on his albums, and Belle & Sebastian's decision to choose detached arty photos of no particular purpose, I am sure the truth lies.

To return to this particular album, it is by far the most dark of the three I have. I don't mind the dark, it is all part of the experience of this band, and it makes them better.

However, "Fold Your Hands" is a little uneven, and for every strong pop track there is a song that veers into the weird but loses some quality in the process.

That said, there are many good tracks on the album, and it is worth a listen or two or three. If the lyrics creep up on you, don't be alarmed - they are creepy. It is meant to be that way.

Best tracks: I Fought In a War, Don't Leave The Light On Baby, The Wrong Girl, The Chalet Lines, Women's Realm