Belle & Sebastian have been writing about love since forever, so what exactly has changed here? Erm, not very much by the sound of it.
Belle & Sebastian have been writing about love since forever, so what exactly has changed here? Erm, not very much by the sound of it. After a four-year gap, Write About Love bridges Belle & Sebastian Mark I (sad sooks hiding behind their books) and Belle & Sebastian Mark II (happy sooks bouncing around on the stage), and finds the Scottish seven-piece in musical purgatory not unlike their Storytelling period.
The main reason for the recent hiatus was Stuart Murdoch’s shift of focus to his God Help The Girl project, which was a pleasant enough side-step but hardly seems to have triggered any new ideas for his old friends to play with. The one thing he seems to have taken with him is using non-Belle & Sebastian singers to front songs – this has worked for the band in the past, such as in the classic Lazy Line, Painter Jane. But Norah Jones? Stunt-casting is one thing, but the pairing of Jones with a crooning Murdoch makes for a yawnsomely MOR mid-album clunker. The title track fares mildly better, but Carey Mulligan is not quite a fascinating singer as she is an actress and it makes for a rather forgettable single. Match these with a dreadful new low from Steve Jackson and you’ve got a gaping, rusty hole at the album’s centre.
Elsewhere, things aren’t quite as depressing – Come On Sister and Sunday’s Pretty Icons are successfully infused with the energy and pop sensibility of the last two albums – but overall there’s a sense of things standing still musically, and a real lack of insight or wit that you’d usually find plentiful within Murdoch’s song-writing.
What’s most annoying about the inclusion of dull guest vocalists is that Sarah Martin is on top of her game here, adding much to the top-notch opening track I Didn’t See It Coming and proving her song-writing chops in the other album highlight, I Can See your Future. Maybe it’s tie for her to fly the coup and find pastures new with a solo album, a la Isobel Campbell?
Belle & Sebastian’s Belle & Sebastian Write About Love is out now through Rough Trade and Remote Control Records.
