Belle and Sebastian: Write About Love

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“And it’s fun/Thinking of you like a movie star/And it’s dumb/Thinking of you like the way you are”.  So sings Stuart Murdoch on the opening lines of “Come on Sister”, the second track on Belle and Sebastian’s latest release, Write About Love.  Fitting lyrics, as Belle and Sebastian albums have always had a cinematic and dreamlike quality to them.   The new release is no exception. 

Elegant and brassy arrangements fill the landscape of certain songs while others are stripped down to slower acoustic ditties.  Murdoch also relinquishes vocal duties on certain songs, giving Sarah Martin (opener “I Didn’t See It Coming” and “I Can See Your Future”) and Stevie Jackson (“I’m Not Living in the Real World”) center stage billing.  Ensemble guests ?uestlove, Norah Jones, and upstart British actress Carey Mulligan round out the lineup diversifying Belle and Sebastian’s roster and adding to their unique signature sound that has been honed over the course of a nearly 15 year career.

Martin’s slow-burning album opener plays out like the opening credits of a film, gentle lyrics and tapping keyboards that work their way towards a bombastic climax.  Murdoch takes the reins for the next five songs which play out like a Belle and Sebastian Greatest Hits package, hiccupping a bit on a duet with the aforementioned Jones on “Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John”, but otherwise snapping along with the kinetic, call and response delicate energy that has earned the band a sizable audience and a healthy living.  Jackson’s “I’m Not Living in the Real World” offers little musical variability but his vocals offer a nice mid-album change of pace as he echoes the title track’s sentiments of one of life’s greatest bummers: workplace malaise.  While the album’s pacing does indeed mirror a film narrative, the plot of the so-called film centers around the big issues of life, namely relationships, work, identity, and even one’s relationship with a higher being.  “I know the way/Get on your pretty knees and pray”, sing Murdoch and Mulligan on the title track. 

On “The Ghost of Rockschool”, Murdoch tosses around the name of God repeatedly throughout the refrain, seemingly pausing to admire the natural beauty of life all around.   Sequenced towards the end of the album, the song begs to be played over the imaginary scene of the film’s protagonist’s moment of epiphany when some of the frustrations and hardships of life are being overcome or at least being dealt with.  Two tracks later, on the album’s best song, “I Can See Your Future”, Martin returns with an overwhelmingly positive intimation of hope, assuaging fears and assuring the protagonist and audience to keep moving ahead because “Forward’s the only way to go”.  Again, the details are murky, but the band again alludes to a relationship with Christianity.  Could God be the narrator of the song asking the addressed to “follow my way”?  Or is it just a friend or advisor instead who has seen the subject since “You were young and free”? 

Belle and Sebastian have never offered easy answers, instead they just write challenging lyrics that ask the listener to follow closely and make assumptions.  Write About Love is no different, another success in a long line of great musical accomplishments. 

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