December 31, 1998
I've already started seeing Belle & Sebastian's The Boy With The Arab Strap showing up on many critic's year end best-of 1998 lists - while that album is a worthy inclusion and perhaps more musically varied than this, their sophomore release, it's not quite as good.
Despite what you might infer from their name, Belle & Sebastian is actually a seven-piece band. Eschewing the loud guitars and funky electronics of current musical trends, Belle & Sebastian have crafted a gorgeous, melancholy folk that owes much to British folkies like Nick Lowe or Donovan. As chief songwriter and singer Stuart Murdoch sings, "Nobody writes them like they used to, so it might as well be me." Oddly, the music is so gossamer, the melodies so delicate that it seems impossible that there are seven people playing it. Halting horns, light organ, tasteful strings and vibraphone color the songs subliminally - this is the gentlest, downright prettiest music I've heard in ages.
If punk rock is about telling everyone to go screw themselves while you do your own thing, then this could be punk rock for the 90's. Punk was first a reaction against the mellow sounds of 70's singer-songwriters, a burst of anger previously unheard in popular music. Flashforward twenty years. Everyone is angry, and loud guitars just don't have the power to offend like they used to. Rage is expected. Therefore, what better reaction, what more appropriate smack in the face than an album of uncommon melodic, harmonic acoustic loveliness?
At least, the music itself is beautiful: but Murdoch has a cynical, bittersweet lyrical bite that puts the "sinister" in the title. Songs of schoolgirls sleeping their way to the top, infidelity and existentialism are given a sly treatment with memorable turns of phrase and witty criticisms.
If this sounds pretentious, it is - for God's sake, the girl on the cover is reading Kafka's "Trial" - but Murdoch & Co. have the skill, intelligence and melodic craftsmanship to make this album a melancholy gem. Buy a copy for a rainy day.
- Jared O'Connor
no one writes them like this
anymore