Belle & Sebastian--

The Boy With The Arab Strap

(Matador 311)

This Scottish group's 1997 CD, If You're Feeling Sinister, was one of those aural treasures that seemed to define it's year of release, for me and several others on the staff at least. A seamless set of songs, programmed expertly, intriguingly sung; defying expectations all the while. How often does that happen?

The Belle & Sebastian "sound," so blatantly anachronistic specialists think mid-period Donovan crossed with Nick Drake fronting the Velvets on the 3rd Velvets record and you've almost got it shaped itself to the waveform of some of the most uncompromising and intriguing lyrics to be heard. The band's reclusive lead songwriter, Stuart Murdoch avoids interviews, plays limited U.S. live gigs, etc., but he laid it all out on the line in Sinister's multi-faceted songs (what more would you want him to say, anyway??)

I'm happy to report that the band's Matador debut, The Boy With The Arab Strap is a wondrous follow up to Sinister that every fan of the earlier disc should snatch up immediately released at a perfect time, too. This is falling trees music, golden and changing and organic; full of mood shifts and haunting melodies.

Like Sinster, and the string of excellent U.K.-only EPs the band released last year, this new 12-song collection contains a similar musical blend of sour-sweet melancholy ("The Rollercoaster Ride "), hushed reflection ("It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career") and stone-faced black humour (the poptific "Dirty Dream#2"). This time around there are two (to my ears) inferior tracks that keep me from putting it in Sinister's league. . . but I won't tell you what they are because I could always change my mind the more I listen.

And I intend to listen. If I have any kind of serious quibble about The Boy With The Arab Strap, though, it's that so many of the songs seem tobe about the rock star game, getting signed, meeting the indie music press,etc. I usually hate this kind of inside-industry quoting people who go into the studio and write songs about their producer, for instance and it runs counter to the lasting strength of If You're Feeling Sinister, where you could peer inside the souls of the songs' characters, and the characters themselves were worth hearing about. But even their most frivolous (see "Chickfactor") Murdoch's tales are told behind some of the most tear-inducing chord changes and string arrangements you'll ever hear in your life.

When you wed music this fragile (and this is indeed pretty fragile... no one said this band "rocked" in the rad sense) to subject matters as limited as your band getting signed, you are in danger of seeming a little precious and full of yourself; with Belle & Sebastian I have a feeling that the subject matter is more an honest reflection of what they've gone through the past year their U.S. label went under, record exec Seymour Stein flew over to sign them and got turned away, someone they know left the music biz, etc. than an attempt to show off or name drop.

In any case, if anyone could make name-dropping sound bittersweet, it would be Belle & Sebastian.

- Don Harrison