Yet another damning one, folks. Why does everyone think they're smug??? ******************* Jeepster JPRCD010) Long awaited fourth album from the cardie-wearers is no great step forward... Hating Glasgow cuties Belle & Sebastian is now so commonplace that everyone to the left of, and including, Steps has joined in. Not that they care. Having achieved a remarkable level of success entirely on their own terms - never talking to the press, hardly ever performing live, and turning down most offers made to them, even those in good faith - there's absolutely no reason for them to make any concessions to the horrible outside world. (They didn't balk at the chance to appear on TOTP with current single 'Legal Man' last week though, and its summery idiocy was a rare treat juxtaposed with the usual endless succession of manufactured singer/dancers. They sure ain't been to no stage school). That single isn't present on this album, presumably because its mood is so at odds with the essentially downbeat nature of the rest of the material. And let's be honest here, 'Fold Your Hands Child...' (title allegedly lifted from graffito spotted by mainman Stuart Murdoch, possibly in a friend's lavvy) is a drab bastard of a disc. It doesn't start too badly. 'I Fought In A War', all minor keys and windswept strings, is a fine opener, soon transporting the listener to B&S land, but only the beautiful, if entertainingly pathetic 'Don't Leave The Light On Baby' and the countrified 'The Wrong Girl' come anywhere near matching it. The crappy 'Beyond The Sunrise' is as feeble a Lee Hazlewood copy as can be imagined, the shoddy 'Woman's Realm' (and that is a stinker of a title) could be by any one of the burgeoning numbers of B&S copyists out there, while the much commented-on 'Chalet Lines', Murdoch's necessarily downbeat description of a rape (and charmlessly described on the press release as 'quite slow and sad') is vocally almost unintelligible. Several hundred plays later, the other songs leave no impression. Not that it'll matter. The Belleshitters will lap it up, while the doubtful will remain unconverted. But the interested rather than fanatical will be dismayed that nothing matches classics like 'Lazy Line Painter Jane', 'Boy With The Arab Strap' or just about anything on 'If You're Feeling Sinister'. To accuse Belle and Sebastian of artifice is obviously a pointless exercise - their entire career to date rests on it - but this half-hearted tribute to Love's 'Forever Changes' (thirty three years old and sounding better than ever) won't even be the best string-laden, over-arranged record from a Glasgow combo this year (thank you, Delgados). Smug, detached, and noticeably underwritten, this is a serious disappointment. ** [2 out of 5] Steve Jelbert --Jason Andreas If nice guys finish last, then I'll never finish at all... ICQ: 45821217 AIM: RadioJase +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead 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 +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "peculiarly deranged fanbase" "frighteningly named +-+ +-+ Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+