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Be it the viability of 3rd parties in American politics, or the profundity of writers like Jack Kerouac and Nietzsche, I was wrong about a lot of things in college. It is only after descending from the purportedly ivory towers of higher education that I have truly realized things like the value of regular bathing, pants not made of denim, and sleep. Sure, sure, the heady mix of barracks-style housing, and fresh-granted personal freedom clouds many young Americans’ judgments. Only the lucky ones escape their undergraduate years without dabbling in creative facial hair or misappropriating student loans for “that bitchin’ pink flying v the dude down the hall is looking to sell.” But not all decisions made during these troubled years are entirely off-base. Case in point: During my tenure with the student run newspaper at my alma mater, a small private school in the Northeast that the lawyers tell me I should identify no further, I reviewed Belle & Sebastian’s last studio album, 2003’s Dear Catastrophe Waitress. There were mistakes in the article, sure, sure. The most egregious one being the headline some sick fuck of an editor affixed to it--"Belle, Sebastian combine for cult duo." This is when the first sentence of the review contained the phrase "six member group." Now, I may have been wrong about the number of members, I'm not sure. To this day, I can't keep of how many members Belle & Sebastian has from album to album. Last time I saw them play out, there were more people on stage than a production of Godspell, but not all of these, I'm sure, are actual members. The point is that editors are supposed to lessen the number of mistakes, not add to them. Especially when they directly contradict the first sentence of an article in the headline. To this day, I'm not entirely unconvinced that the paper wasn't edited by a roomful of monkeys hacking randomly at keyboards. But I digress. Ignoring the terrible travesty of the headline, I wrote at the time that "Dear Catastrophe Waitress showed that the band was ready to embark on the great white whale hunt for a hit single. If the album is any indication, they have a great chance of succeeding. Unfortunately it will come at the expense of the qualities that made Belle & Sebastian special in the first place." And here we are in the brave new world of 2006. What has become of Belle & Sebastian? Their latest single, "Funny Little Frog" has charted higher in England than anything they've yet released, and their latest album has been released in the midst of media attention from previously unlikely sources including People magazine (in the upcoming March 20 issue). "The Life Pursuit" is shaping up to be a success in all the businessy definitions of the term, but the real question is how does it sound? The answer: Like the Kinks. Or T-Rex. Or Michael "What A Fool Believes" Macdonald, but unfortunately not like Belle & Sebastian. It's a good record, I guess. A pleasant record to be sure. Stuart Murdoch's poison pen lyrics are still up to snuff, if that's any consolation. Only occasionly does his delicate voice sound truly oddly pumped up in front of the mix, like your most mild mannered friend going unexpectedly balls out at a karaoke bar. And, as he shows on "The Blues Are Still Blue," Stuart does an uncanny impersonation of mid-70s Ray Davies. That song, and the fuzzy glam-pop of "White Collar Boy" are highlights of the record, but it's hard to shake the feeling that I've heard it all before. And Tony Hoffer's production, which seems to involve getting the individual players to disappear as far inside the arrangements as possible, just magnifies what problems there are. When the songs aren't up to snuff, they can't just coast on the sound of an original and important band the way some lesser B & S tracks have in the past. Instead, things like the ill-informed white funk of "Song for Sunshine" crash and burn in a way the band didn't used to be capable of. When "Dress Up In You" comes on halfway through the record with its mournful trumpet, brushed snare, and soft vocal, it sounds like an album cut off of The Boy With The Arab Strap or Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant. But in this company it's a breath of fresh air, and just about the only thing that doesn't sound like a dress up game involving the band and a closet full of seventies pop records. |
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