Belle And Sebastian - Write About Love
- Written by Joe Bates
There's something life-affirming about a band continuing to make good music at a time when you might expect diminishing returns. Belle and Sebastian's eighth album, Belle and Sebastian Write About Love will be remarked upon for its gentleness, its slightness, and almost certainly for being above all else a very Belle and Sebastian album. Progression is in evidence, but it's not what everyone might call progression, its slickness and its classic sound further smoothing out their sound, which wasn't particularly rough to begin with. But this is almost besides the point when the album is so consistently good, and as the third great album in a row by a band 15 years into their career, represents a very heartening and welcome assurance that Stuart Murdoch and co could be providing us with great music for a long time to come.
Opener 'I Didn't See It Coming' starts things off in typically pretty Belle and Sebastian style, but the song builds up momentum and force when Stuart Murdoch takes over lead vocals from Sarah Martin. The music has a melancholy edge which has not been always been apparent, particularly on the past two albums which were both scattered with upbeat genre exercises. The bitter-sweet tone pervades the rest of the album, right up until the beautiful 'Sunday's Pretty Icons' ends the album on a synth-drenched and almost painfully sad note. Notably, the lyrics have changed – there's not much humour to be found, no stories of plucky but awkward teenagers. Such stories are Murdoch's trademark, but it is a subject now thoroughly exhausted and on this album he writes lyrics which, if not monumental, perfectly suit and flow with the music. The more subtle arrangements chime perfectly with the words that seem as personal as he has ever been; 'Read the Blessed Pages' seems to be about a certain ex-band member, and the stunningly melodic 'The Ghost of Rockschool' brings his Christianity to the forefront.
Elsewhere, 'Come on Sister' and 'Calculating Bimbo' are effortless slices of timeless pop music, whilst Stevie Jackson and Sarah Martin both take lead vocals on very decent songs. The latter is especially successful and the former sounds less bland than he can do with the help of the album's most bombastic production. Then there are the two curiously under-publicised duets. One is with Norah Jones, a duet which isn't actually as incongruous as it sounds given the nature of the song she appears on, and one with the star of An Education Carey Mulligan, which is exactly as incongruous as it sounds, especially given her vocal contribution adds little Sarah Martin couldn't have. Perhaps she'd said she was a fan of the band in an interview with Metro and it went from there. Either way, both duets are somewhat distracting and ever-so-slightly bland, particularly the Mulligan effort which probably is exactly what Belle and Sebastian would sound like if they were content to rest on their laurels, a genre-excercise if ever there was one and lyrics which mirror the more pedestrian efforts of Dear Catastrophe Waitress.
It's definitely not what you would call a bad song though, and the fact that a song such as that could be considered a low-point shows how consistently good this album is. Without repeating what has already been said, this represents both a consolidation of Belle and Sebastian's strengths and also a progression, as well as demonstrating an album with a sad tinge which is welcome, because Murdoch can do sad very well. Whether it was worth the five year wait between the records is not a question that needs to be answered, but one hopes that it won't be another five years as the album decisively answers any questions of whether the band still has anything to offer. And in case you've just skipped to the last bit of this review to find out the conclusion, the answer to that question is 'yes, yes they do'.