Send "Belle and Sebastian " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Sputnikmusic |
 It kind of figures that a band whose subtle songwriting and wit has propelled them to success would slip and stumble at the point where they’ve adopted the most bold album title since Prince’s Lovesexy. You see, Belle and Sebastian have been writing about love their entire career; good love, bad love, sadomasochistic love – they’ve run the gamut. Coming off two marvels of artistic reinvigoration, Dear Catastrophe Waitress and The Life Pursuit, the idea that this is where the topic needed a signpost could very well have been a cause for worry but who would’ve thought of that? The band were on a steep upward trend and nobody likes a pessimist. Unfortunately, this is where the trend curves. Write About Love is a determinedly placid record. It’s very possible that the impact of Write About Love’s failure is greatened by the success of the two albums preceding it. Four years is a long time to wait and coming off back-to-back successes, anything not up to that standard would’ve been met with dissatisfaction. It mimics the release of The Boy With The Arab Strap – an album burdened by the pressure of following up one of the most universally adored indie pop albums ever. The truth is, though, that Write About Love is weak in any context; uncreative by their high standards and mediocre by most others. The Life Pursuit was a record that brought ambition by the bucket load but one of the key downfalls of Write About Love is that it feels too lazy to have even gone to the well. Where at one time every word sung from Stuart Murdoch’s mouth seemed to glow with creativity, Write About Love is, at its weakest moments, exceptionally plain. The problem with many of the songs, like “Calculating Bimbo” and “The Ghost of Rockschool”, is that they’re just nice songs. They’re nice in the way your grandma would respond when you asked her as a kid to watch you cannonball off the diving board: “That’s nice, dear.” Let’s face it, she wasn’t that impressed. You could’ve done a few spins. Jumping backwards was a known crowd-pleaser. If you were especially committed you could’ve gained a few pounds, skinny kids never make big waves. At the end of the day, you just didn’t do enough – that’s the crux of Belle and Sebastian’s problem; it’s not bad, it just isn’t enough. It’s unremarkable. Belle and Sebastian’s grandmother is not impressed....full text |
| Cokemachineglow |
| In the early 2000s, Belle & Sebastian were in a rut. Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant (2000) saw them receive their first bad reviews; their label, Jeepster, ceased releasing new music; and two founding members—cellist/singer/songwriter Isobel Campbell and Stuart David, bassist/singer-songwriter of stellar B-side “Winter Wooskie”—left to pursue solo work. This necessitated reinvention, and the Belle & Sebastian that emerged in the wake of change was an utterly confident pop band as indebted to T. Rex and Thin Lizzy as it was Blueboy and the Smiths. It tore through two records, one very good (2003’s Dear Catastrophe Waitress) and one that’s arguably the band’s career high (2006’s The Life Pursuit). Subsequent touring saw the band conquer venues as large as the Hollywood Bowl, a major reversal for a group that once proposed sending a Japanese cover band in its stead and had an early live performance rejected for broadcast by NPR, who are incidentally streaming Write About Love in anticipation of its release. Write About Love is another reinvention. The joyousness and giddy highs of The Life Pursuit‘s best moments are gone; there’s no shredding (if the solo on “We Are the Sleepyheads” counts as shredding, which it almost certainly doesn’t), no knockout turns of phrase, no good Stevie Jackson songs, no moments in with Stuart Murdoch makes the word “fuck” sound simultaneously completely gratuitous and utterly essential to communicating an idea. Instead, Write About Love is a record of out-and-out prettiness, one replete with guest vocalists, MIDI strings, and slight songwriting. This is, of course, not totally dissimilar from God Help the Girl, Stuart Murdoch’s other songwriting project, where he (and most of B&S) gave too many good songs to people who could sing them too well for them to be effective. Write About Love‘s two most jarring moments easily come at the album’s center, where adult contemporary megastar Norah Jones takes a lead on “Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John” and actress Carey Mulligan sings on “Write About Love,” which sounds like an utterly vapid outtake from God Help the Girl (about which I can remember nothing but “Funny Little Frog” and how its northern soul makeover was pretty good)....full text |
| Themusicslut |
| After I was given a cassette copy of If You’re Feeling Sinister in 1996 by a workmate in the supermarket where I stacked shelves, I became a confirmed and committed fan of Belle & Sebastian. This was not an especially unimaginable occurrance: certainly in an environment which seemed to echo some of their great early songs (unfulfilling work in retail: check; frustrated love life; check: marginal existence somewhere in the arse end of Scotland: check; literary pretensions: check; propensity for making lists using unnecessarily complicated punctuation: check). Being a fan of the group also satisfied the collector that lurks inside every indie fanboy: 3rd LP The Boy with the Arab Strap was presaged by a CD release of the hitherto impossible to find Tigermilk, and there were the EPs to collect (and once you had those, you could even buy a cardboard slipcase for your copies!)....full text |
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