i got the october Spin magazine and there's a decent review of twattybus (the email list is even mentioned!), and since i don't recall it being posted here, i'll do that now. note: stuff in [] are my comments. feel free to ignore them. rated: 8 out of 10 belle and sebastian are wimps and proud of it, so naturally their cardinal vertue is modesty. singer/guitarist stuart murdoch is the closest thing the octet has to a leader, but being singularly modest, he's turned over some of the songwriting and singing to his bandmates on this third album: stuart david's spaceboy dream is of a piece with his recent solo single as looper; isobel campbell sings the twee, breathy is it wicked not to care, and stevie jackson's two contributions reveal a potentially unhealthy fascination with the music biz (one's named after sire records founder seymour stein, the other after the pop zine chickfactor). being pathologically modest, melodist supreme murdoch has left some of his own most striking songs off the album -- the sizable e-mail ilst of belle cultists [!] is aggogle [!] at the omissions. or maybe murdoch's just pathological like a fox. belle ands ebastian have always played hard-to-get, limiting their first album tigermilk to 1,000 (vinyl!) copies and playing in public only a few times a year. murdoch knows full well that hearing one song more than others can get in the way of an album's flow, so even the songs that might naturally walk tall are convinced to slouch a little. the title track (an "arab strap" is a marital aid; Arab Strap is a fellow scottish band) has what could be a big-bump "jean genie"/"everybody wants to rule the world" groove -- but murdoch sings it like he's worried about starting an avalance, and he keeps on swallowing his words even after the band fades out. speak up, boy! arab strap is a more mature album than 1997's if you're feeling sinister, less concerned with just-postadosecent torment, which is to say it's concerned with more mature torment-frustrating erotic fantasies, the sense of too much time passing, the heroine of last year's triumphant "layz line painter jane" single reappearing as an overpaid art-world hack. the hormone-dazed momentum of the earlier records has turned to exquisite stasis, graced with subtle string and horn arrangements. dirty dream #2 disguises its motown beat in a swirl of strings and organ, and though sleep the clock around builds toward what might be a tremendous climax, it's kept in its place by 70s synth chintz and a drum-machine two-step. what comes out of all this self-restraint is a pastoral album whose minor accomplishments add up to a tremendous power when heard as a whole. murdoch and his disciples - as much a chamber music ensemble as a rock band at this point - refuse to do anything in broad strokes, which means nothing here wears out over repeated listenings, but also that you have to lean into the album to get much out of it. listen closely, though, and you'll relish the tiny filigreed details, the unexpected instrumental accents they can pull off only by haing half the group sit out half a song, murdoch's wry turns of phras and flip-flops between intertextual cleverness and heart-on-sleeve honesty. modesty is also a virtue for people who know exactly how good they are. -- douglas wolk there. -kerry "Death has come in the pantry door: stands watching them, iron and patient, with a look that says _try to tickle me_." --Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_