Sinister: Dialing up a catastrophe...

[Jaye Conner]

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 at blue.weeg.uiowa.edu

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