BELLE AND SEBASTIAN: WRITE ABOUT LOVE
(2010)
1) I Didn't See It Coming; 2)
Come On Sister; 3) Calculating Bimbo; 4) I Want The World To Stop; 5) Little
Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John; 6) Write About Love; 7) I'm Not Living In The
Real World; 8) The Ghost Of Rockschool; 9) Read The Blessed Pages; 10) I Can
See Your Future; 11) Sunday's Pretty Icons.
Like all Belle & Sebastian albums, and especially like those Belle &
Sebastian albums where Murdoch's melancholic personality is not so overreaching
that it eventually gets on your nerves, Write
About Love is immediately likeable; so likeable that most people have
probably formed their comfy opinions about it just by looking at the by-now
traditional color palette and typescript of the album sleeve. In terms of
general curve, though, I find this a relative disappointment after the double
sunshine-through-tears pop shot of Dear
Catastrophe Waitress and The Life
Pursuit. It is just as easy to like, yes, but not as easy to get into on a
deeper level, and, unlike its predecessors, Write About Love seems to suffer quite a bit from indie clichés.
The band has once again enlisted Tony Hoffer as
producer, but this time production values are notably different — Murdoch
retains the fully-arranged pop gloss of the previous records, yet strives to
bring it up to date with more «contemporary» standards. Already the first
twenty seconds of ʽI Didn't See It Comingʼ arouse suspicion: a wispy
electronic cloud of noise, expectable, perhaps, from any neo-psychedelic
artist, but since when have Belle & Sebastian ever expressed a penchant for
trippy electronics? The electronics are then joined by some decidedly modernistic
beats (I'd almost say they were pre-programmed, but maybe Colburn had finally
graduated from the Human Metronome school); a distant, echoey lead vocal by
Sarah Martin; and, eventually, a series of synth loops and solos that have no function,
as far as I can tell, other than stating: "No, no, you don't get it — there's
nothing we actually have against
being hip with today's kids, we just wanted to put it off until everybody were back in the synthesizer
business!"
Like Apples In Stereo, for instance. The
difference is, somehow, that Apples In Stereo, with the release of New Magnetic Wonder, managed to make
their music more interesting by
incorporating electronic elements, as this allowed them a sort of «sprawl»
they could never afford before. Murdoch, unfortunately, has incorporated those
elements without accompanying them by any significant musical shifts. It used
to be Belle & Sebastian, now it's «Belle & Sebastian with synths». The
retro vibe is canceled (unless, like some critics, you prefer to think of it as
a replacement of the Seventies' retro vibe by the Eighties' retro vibe), and,
more importantly and painfully, much of the Belle & Sebastian vibe has been
canceled, too. If ever you need to show to some friend what it is that makes
Murdoch such a standout artist, please do not even think about enticing the
victim with Write About Love — it is
about as indicative of Murdoch's personality as Tunnel Of Love is of Bruce Springsteen's, to quote a random
example.
Which is not to say the songs are bad or
anything. Most of them are okay, the kind of sweet, smooth, edgeless indie pop
you hear in mainstream music stores or youth cafés. They have vocal hooks,
sometimes they have sympathetic instrumental passages as well. But the essence
of the album is exemplified by the ballad ʽLittle Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet
Jonesʼ, a duet between Murdoch and invited guest star Norah Jones: tender,
bitter, lite-ly depressed, gallantly dressed in acoustic and electric guitars
and several layers of keyboards (organs rather than synths) — and sleepwalking
all the way, right down to the final "what a waste, I could've been your
friend", delivered with all the obligatory husky aspiration
("...your frie-HH-ee-HH-ee-HH-ee-HHnd-HH!") you'd expect not just
from Norah Jones, but from any song in this particular style. For more of the
same, check ʽCalculating Bimboʼ, equally tender and equally yawny.
You know something's wrong when the «standout»
track on the album turns out to be something as atypical as a Stevie Jackson
lead vocal on ʽI'm Not Living In The Real Worldʼ, which sounds like a tribute
to Manfred Mann with its harmonies, singalong choruses, and general exuberance.
And even so, it is hardly one of the better
tracks on the album — whether it stands out for good or for bad is quite
debatable. Then again, I have no idea what those «better» tracks would actually
be. ʽI Want The World To Stopʼ? Catchy, but too A-Ha-ish. I'd rather take
Morten Harket in person than an unintentional Scottish copy. ʽI Can See Your
Futureʼ? Those trombones have too much of a generic mariachi flavor, Sarah
Martin does a fairly cringeworthy arranging job. Call me too picky, but with
the possible exception of that first track, whose chorus hook ("but we
don't have the money...") I cannot help but find stirring, there is not a
single song on here I'd vote for when it comes to assembling the Golden Fund.
So, if taken on its own, Write About Love is nice enough, but in the overall context, it is
nothing short of an embarrassing disaster. Of course, change is always risky.
When Murdoch decided it was time for a change on Dear Catastrophe Waitress, he took a gamble and hit the jackpot —
the combination of bitter-sneery lyrics with sunshine pop riffs and rhythms
worked like a charm. Now the bell of change has struck again, and by deciding
to «modernize», the man has simply capsized the ship, drowning the message and
blandifying the music to nothingness. As of 2010, this is the last album of original
Belle & Sebastian material released so far; we may only hope that the bell
of change will ring again for Murdoch before the decade is out. In the
meantime, let us hope this thumbs down exerts its rightful voodoo effect
on the man.
Check "Write About Love" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Write About Love" (MP3) on Amazon
As I have already had the chance to tell you, George, I find your ratings of B&S albums rather arbitrary--granted, that's the band's fault as much as the reviewer's. In my opinion, Write About Love is actually one of the stronger B&S albums, mainly because I can actually name at least two stand-out songs here ("Sunday's Pretty Icons", "I Want the World to Stop") thanks to clever vocal hooks and interesting arrangements. Which, I believe, is no mean achievement for a B&S album. Also, I really don't think synths are bad for B&S. Au contraire, since Murdoch is such an unremarkable melodicist, every little bit of sound diversity helps the listener a ton. Unless you happen to be of an opinion synths are inherently bad, that is--B&S use them quite tastefully, after all.
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