Doe-eyed lovers and quiet indie kids, rejoice! Belle & Sebastian have returned after four years with their followup to the incredible The Life Pursuit album with their seventh studio album, Belle & Sebastian Write About Love, which is probably the weakest album title they've thus far released (consider this is the same band that released If You're Feeling Sinister and Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant (okay, I really just wanted to write all that out. Long album titles amuse me.)).Luckily, unstellar title notwithstanding, the lads have turned out another largely superb album that will rest comfortably next to Dear Catastrophe Waitress and The Life Pursuit (I'll fit 'em all in, you watch) as a cohesive statement of the band's musicianship and the stunning lyrical skills of Stuart Murdoch.
The album opens inauspiciously, with the track "I Didn't See It Coming," a piano driven piece sung largely by Sarah Martin to better effect than any of the songs she (or Isobell Campbell or whomever) has fronted for the band in many many years. The melody is stolen straight from your favorite memories and will surely lodge itself there for a long time. "I Want the World to Stop" is classic B&S, an upbeat pop tempo, a grooving bassline, and lyrics communicating the gray dullness of winter and depression and the longing to escape (think "The Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner" meets "Sleep the Clock Around") sung in Murdoch's beautiful tenor with an urgency that grips your heart.
Ultimately, the album's greatest triumphs are its' greatest failings as well. Beside the fact that this album is virtually indistinguishable from other albums in Belle & Sebastian's oeuvre, there's no forward progress as musicians. This could be their third album or their fifth album just as easily as their seventh. And of course, the songs written by Stevie Jackson (I'm thinking specifically of "I'm Not Living in the Real World," a song which I may never play again after finishing this review) and the other members of the band never quite measure up to the urgency, the emotion, the pure heart-wrenching pureness of Murdoch's honesty.
Of course, having more of the same isn't really a concern for fans of the band, because while they haven't moved forward per se, they haven't stagnated either. The music is still bright, emotive, fresh, and relevant, and twee fans all over the world should accept Belle & Sebastian Write About Love with triumphant fanfare for a band who knows exactly what they're good at doing and is going to make wonderful indie pop for many years to come.
8.1/10
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