Hello Sinisteria, I know that we're beyond the reviews of DCW but felt obligated to pass on this one from the student newspaper here. I have not heard the new disc in its' entirety, however, I like what I've heard, and must include that the student-run radio station is excellent... quite possibly my reason for staying in this town. So, read on if you feel compelled. I have left in the writer's name for those of you feeling sinister... Dialing up a catastrophe when nobody's at home By Richard Shirk - The Daily Iowan Singing about being bundled in sweaters and taking walks in the rain seemed to be a formula that worked for twee-poppers Belle & Sebastian. Now, with a new long-player - Dear Catastrophe Waitress (Rough Trade) - the Glasgow septet has swept out almost everything that made its pastiche-heavy music so precious. The charming infusion of '60s folk-pop with indie affability has been phased out this time around and replaced with a frustrating batch of songs embracing the most schlocky, chauvinistic, and forgettable elements of late-60s West Coast pop and mid-70s pub-rock. And if there is one thing that Belle & Sebastian could be counted on for, it was to be not chauvinistic. Led by Stuart Murdoch through a variety of lineup permutations, the band's first four proper albums saw a songwriting perspective often dealing in the same fatalism that made a band such as the Smiths so great. Combined with an androgynous Nico-esque voice and a band mystique centered on drinking tea, reading books, and talking Tolkien with pals in the park, Belle & Sebastian was the perfect picture of an innocent, nonthreatening pop-band. A lesson in complete negation, Catastrophe is a radical departure that the band can hardly recover from. Slathered with cheesy horn arrangements, bad wah-wah guitars, and a new side of Murdoch as a songwriter, the album is constructed entirely from the worst elements of classic-rock radio. A trudge through the album becomes almost impossible once Murdoch - previously content being a foppy bookworm in his songwriting - begins to wheel out thinly veiled sexual innuendoes in the album opener, "Step Into My Office, Baby." An otherwise unassuming song, the Led Zeppelin-isms are abundant as Murdoch fantasizes about being a suit-bound office overseer in a position to pressure newly employed women into sex. Hardly the sensitivity found on Tigermilk or If You're Feeling Sinister. The rest of the album may not be all downhill, but after a tacky song that simultaneously cribs AC/DC lyrics while rockin' some Lovin' Spoonful riffs, it's only the first in a series of monumental mistakes. While the title track could easily fit onto any of the band's previous albums, it is still marred by the same hammy arrangements that also ruin such tracks as "If She Wants Me," "If You Find Yourself Caught In Love," and "I'm a Cuckoo." While "Roy Walker" sounds like it could easily be a cast-off from CCR or Buffalo Springfield, "Stay Loose" is a spot-on Squeeze song - which is not exactly terrible, but definitely not something that was new or bold even in 1982. And even at the best of moments, Belle & Sebastian sounds like a band covering itself. "Wrapped Up In Books" is pretty much the same song as the title track of Boy With The Arab Strap, and "Asleep on a Sunbeam," although coy and boring, is only on par with some of the low-points of the band's best albums. But to the band's credit, at least Catastrophe is a distinguished accomplishment. After all, who could have predicted a band as previously interesting and enjoyable as Belle & Sebastian could find so many imaginative ways to be extraordinarily terrible? E-mail DI reporter Richard Shirk at: rshirk@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+