
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit (2006)
Like the Kinks and the magnetic fields, Scottish pop perfectionists Belle and
Sebastian are brilliant at pairing heart-tugging melodies with perfectly turned lyrics that favor kiss-offs over come-ons. But on the group's seventh album, a little bit of the bloom has come off the rose. The single "Funny Little Frog" -- with its Muswell Hillbillies horns and lyrical nod to the early, amazing "The State I'm In" -- is cuter than it is clever. And attempts to augment the band's trademark chamber pop with Shuggie Otis-style psychedelic soul (on "Song for Sunshine") and a Frampton Comes Alive guitar solo ("We Are Sleepyheads") aren't as memorable as you'd like them to be. But when the experiments work -- as on "White Collar Boy," which marries a whistle-ready melody with a fat synth line, and the awesomely glam "The Blues Are Still Blue" -- it's clear that band leader Stuart Murdoch still has plenty of major-league tunes left in the tank.

Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts of the Week
-
In the Reins is a joint EP by Calexico and Iron & Wine, released by Overcoat Recordings on September 13, 2005. Iron & Wine's Sa...
-
Siouxsie And The Banshees Hong Kong Garden A lot of people have been waiting for a long time for this disc, while punk’s self-styled enfant ...
-
Electro-Shock Blues E had a difficult time in his personal life at this point. His sister had committed suicide just before Beautiful Freak...
-
Rating: 9.1/10 Modern Music Review A growing band, four desirous albums watching each other artistically, walking together nearly twelve yea...
-
Linkin Park invited fans everywhere into the heart of their Hollywood rehearsal space as they performed the signature smash "Crawli...
-
Maya (stylised as /\/\ /\ Y /\) is the upcoming third studio album by British recording artist M.I.A., set to be released on 13 July 2010 on...
-
It was nice that the Brit Awards acknowledged the loss last year of the talented Amy Winehouse. I reviewed many of Amy's songs before...
0 COMMENTS:
Post a Comment