Sinister: another TWATTYBUS review

[Zach B.]

i checked the archives, and didn't see this one, so here's a review of 
TBWTAS from Drawer B (http://www.space-age-bachelor.com/drawerb)

This follow up to the very brilliant If You’re Feeling Sinister has a 
lot to live up to since this overly shy eight-piece band from Glasgow, 
Scotland has graced the unlikely pages of Entertainment Weekly and been 
name dropped on the MTV Video Music Awards. Belle & Sebastian write 
heartbreaking, simple pop songs characterized by lead vocalist Stuart 
Murdoch’s light melancholic cadences, which bear a disturbing 
resemblance to the late great Nick Drake. 

The song structures are reminiscent of early Velvet Underground while 
the melodies hint at traces of both The Smiths and Felt. This album 
while neither as delicate nor as sentimental as its predecessor is 
perfect melancholic pop. The lyrics take the minutiae of mundane 
everyday life and glorify it with the intensity of high school journal 
keepers while maintaining a sinister sense of humor: “Take Judy with her 
bow and arrow she’s a mastermind/Too frumpy for the teenage population 
of her time/Car coat she has a quilted jacket with a hood if it 
rains/Big pockets for the pharmaceuticals she takes to fix her brain 
(“The Rollercoaster Ride”). 

This is Belle & Sebastian’s third full length- their first album, 
Tigermilk, is extremely hard to come by as only 1,000 (vinyl) copies 
were pressed in England- and it displays quite a bit more confidence 
both lyrically and musically. The album occasionally loses focus, 
however, when Murdoch passes the microphone to some of his bandmates, 
whose voices fail to create the intimacy that separates Belle & 
Sebastian from legions of other like-minded bands. This album succeeds 
in being a bit more adventurous with electric guitars edging into the 
forefront (“A Summer Wasting”, “Simple Things”) and its sparing use of 
synthetics, but things do digress slightly with an unwelcome foray into 
spoken word (“A Space Boy Dream”). Such minor missteps are rare and 
easily overlooked in the wake of a flawless song like “Ease Your Feet 
Into The Sea.” Belle & Sebastian seem wide-eyed and innocent with 
singsong melodies and bright, poppy arrangements, but there is a dark 
element that rears its head from time to time letting you know that they 
know what they’re doing. 
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zach b.

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