BELLE AND SEBASTIAN: FOLD YOUR HANDS
CHILD, YOU WALK LIKE A PEASANT (2000)
1) I Fought In A War; 2) The
Model; 3) Beyond The Sunrise; 4) Waiting For The Moon To Rise; 5) Don't Leave
The Light On Baby; 6) The Wrong Girl; 7) The Chalet Lines; 8) Nice Day For A
Sulk; 9) Women's Realm; 10) Family Tree; 11) There's Too Much Love.
If the title «music in a doll's house» hadn't
already been occupied by Family thirty years earlier, it would have suited
Belle and Sebastian's fourth studio LP much better than this overlong and rather
politically incorrect moniker. Because if you thought that the band's earliest
records were the very definition of the term «mellow», you'd be downright wrong,
or, at least, seriously off the mark. In a strong effort to beat their own
record, the band has doubled the stakes, and now you are listening to music of
such tender frailty that you feel like being inside a cleanroom.
The effect is achieved not only by giving ever
more and more vocal parts to the ladies of the band (Sarah Martin is now
singing lead along with Isobel Campbell), but also by giving more and more space
to instruments other than the guitar — harpsichords, pianos, flutes, strings,
anything that works towards putting the «chamber» back in «chamber pop». Everything
is laid on in very thin layers, though, usually with one dominant instrument
playing some hyper-tender melody with a «nursery» or pastoral flair and the
others gradually rallying behind the leader to add some wispy angelic
atmosphere. In other words, everything so lovely you could almost puke, that
is, if you ever decided to take a look at this «from the outside» — in reality,
unless you are a heavy rocker who got here through some traumatic accident, you
will most probably be caught up in the autistic trance and cuddling your inner
child within minutes.
Even when Isobel Campbell sings that "I'd
rather be fat than be confused / Than be me in a cage / With a bottle of rage /
And a family like the mafia" (ʽFamily Treeʼ), she seems to be doing so within
the confines of some alternate universe where personal conflicts are conducted
in whispers and teen angst is always internalized rather than flashed at
innocent bystanders. From a song like that — piano, flute, and
softer-than-silk, cuddly-hushy little girl vocals — you'd rather expect an
Alice-in-Wonderland kind of message than one of disappointment,
disillusionment, and angry self-seclusion. When she adds that "they threw
me out of school / 'Cause I swore at all the teachers", well, this has to
be heard to be disbelieved.
Overall, the songs are at the same level of
consistency as they used to be — maybe even with a slight increase in the
overall number of hooks, because their exploration of the possibilities of
various instruments seems like a big step up from the primarily acoustic guitar-based
nature of what used to be. I really enjoy the harpsichord/piano/strings
combination on ʽThe Modelʼ; the eerie electric piano of ʽDon't Leave The Light
On, Babyʼ (a little reminiscent of Joni Mitchell's ʽWoodstockʼ and other such
tunes by Murdoch's singer-songwriting idols — nothing like a tremoloed
Wurlitzer to convey a feeling of bottomless depth); the minimalistic piano/cello
duet on ʽThe Chalet Linesʼ; the pretty pop violin melody of ʽWomen's Realmʼ,
and other little things that give each of the songs here plenty of individuality.
That said, it won't be much of an
understatement to say that, even if they have found some moderately new ways
to express their feelings, the feelings themselves stay absolutely the same —
the song title ʽNice Day For A Sulkʼ summarizing them perfectly, as the song
itself is a «nice» piece of piano art-pop that does little other than sulk, sulk,
sulk. It borrows a few of its musical moves from Kinks songs such as ʽAutumn
Almanacʼ, but Ray Davies could never have written anything like this —
melancholia is one thing, but this whole «dazed and stupefied» attitude would
have been too much for ol' Ray. Sooner or later, you'd expect that guy to snap
and throw out a ʽDead End Streetʼ or a ʽBrainwashedʼ, whereas Murdoch seems to
have that particular pathway amputated
at birth. Ironically, the last song begins with the words "I could hang
about and burn my fingers / I've been hanging out there waiting for something
to start" — hey, so have we, and from an overall point of view, we have
spent fourty minutes waiting in vain. (Not that we haven't been warned or
anything.)
The most energetic song here is ʽI Fought In A
Warʼ: a little faster than the rest, slightly anthemic and even «pretentious»
(inasmuch as Murdoch did not actually fight in no wars, so don't pass this
around to actual veterans unless they have a good ear for creative metaphor), but,
unfortunately, it does not move me all that much — maybe because, being
arranged as a rhythm-heavy, dynamically built-up «folk-rock» song, it is still
too cuddly, and lacks a crucial something, whatever that crucial something
might be. Maybe a different vocal approach, a stronger singer? An electric guitar
solo? The possibility to go an octave higher in the climax? I know what a «musical
dream» is, and I have some understanding of anthems, but the song never seems
to make up its mind whether it wants to be a dream or an anthem, and a «dreamy
anthem», want it or not, is an oxymoron. Or, rather, as the song shows, you can
try to make one, but it has every chance to fall on deaf ears (mine) that would
rather go for something more straightforward.
That was just a single example of many tiny
problems that constantly seem to accompany Murdoch's music, along with equally
tiny victories. They shouldn't prevent me from issuing another thumbs up
in a never-ending series, though, because as long as the formula is being
faithfully preserved, it has about as many chances of failure as an AC/DC
album.
Check "Fold Your Hands Child" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Fold Your Hands Child" (MP3) on Amazon
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