Sinister: the NME review of FYHCYWLAP

[Jason Andreas]

Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant
(Jeepster)


Two years since their last album of new material, and all the characteristic
eccentricities that once made Belle & Sebastian such an interesting,
mysterious and nobly intransigent musical/ cultural phenomenon have begun to
wear thin. They offered a suitably shabby, second-hand blanket of
anti-establishment isolationist sentiment and fuzzily melodic nostalgia, and
the disaffected flocked to them like moths to a porchlight.

Yet their continued refusal to engage with the media has begun to beg
certain hazardous, legend-debunking questions: is their wilful facelessness
a symptom of timidity, or arrogant inverse elitism? Is their dedication to
the underachieving indie ethos and dusty musical convention a gesture of
rebellion, or are they just lazy? Despite the unimpeachable beauty of their
every recorded moment, their art has failed to evolve - and it seems that if
they are going to be the voice of misfit society, they should at least have
something to say.

 Finding even a hint of modernity on a Belle & Sebastian album would be akin
to seeing Christ's face in a ciabatta roll - startling, unlikely and, in
such a context, unappetising. It isn't as though one wants breakbeats or
cameo rappers, but some sort of progression ? a fresh twist that might
distinguish this from any other B&S record, perhaps - seems a reasonable
request. It is not one, however, that they seem particularly concerned with.
Despite the fact that songwriting contributions from other members continue
to proliferate, it's amazing how much their sound remains strictly
marshalled within Stuart Murdoch's vision. So although there are intimations
of Isobel Campbell's predilection for nursery rhyme lullabies and Stevie
Jackson's love of Motown (plus a first-time offering from violinist Sarah
Martin, 'Waiting For The Moon To Rise'), we are still fixed firmly in what
is now 'classic' B&S territory - watercolour strings and parps of brass,
intricately constructed arrangements executed with effortless, vivid
panache. And, of course, Stuart Murdoch's airless, disinterested voice
presides.

To be fair, there are minor diversions from the template. Even though the
songs are narratives starring boys and girls rather than men and women, they
deal less with mawkish adolescence and more with abstract emotional
disquiet. 'I Fought In A War' is a soldier's letter home to his sweetheart,
'The Model' is a rambling, confessional apology (distinguished by lines
like, "It was the best sex she ever had", sung by a man who sounds as though
he would find the sight of a woman's bare ankle terrifying ), and the
marvellous 'Don't Leave The Light On, Baby' shimmers with the sort of
arching, dimmer-switch and shag-pile sensuality that begs for a reprise.
'The Wrong Girl' is a Spector/ Bacharach/'Daydream Believer'-type affair,
and the most unashamedly pop song on the album, while 'Chalet Lines' is a
minimal, brittle sketch of half-forgotten romance.

All of these balance out the album's less inspired patches - the
nauseatingly cute 'Nice Day For A Sulk', the fluffy-cardigan handclaps and
Schroeder piano of 'Woman's Realm', for example - and ultimately, despite
all its self-defeating limitations and annoying, fey affectations, this
remains a superb record. Quintessentially Belle & Sebastian. Frustrating.
Contrary. Insubstantial. Yet, in that insular, cloyingly sanctimonious world
they inhabit, still peerless, still irresistible. 8/10

April Long





--Jason Andreas

If nice guys finish last, then I'll never finish at all...

ICQ: 45821217  AIM: RadioJase

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