BELLE AND SEBASTIAN: IF YOU'RE FEELING SINISTER (1996)
1) The Stars Of Track And
Field; 2) Seeing Other People; 3) Me And The Major; 4) Like Dylan In The
Movies; 5) The Fox In The Snow; 6) Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying; 7) If
You're Feeling Sinister; 8) Mayfly; 9) The Boy Done Wrong Again; 10) Judy And
The Dream Of Horses.
Out of all the homogeneous richness of the
Belle & Sebastian catalog, it was If
You're Feeling Sinister that was somehow singled out for «cult» status —
perhaps on the strength of the initial acclaim given to it by the
then-freshly-rising Pitchforkmedia. The truth, I think, is that Murdoch, like
most of his indie friends, operates on an «IV bag principle», yielding the
required content on a steady, consistent, but slow and parsimonious basis, and
this automatically prevents his band from having something like a «best ever»
record, so it's all very much a question of putting something in the right
place at the right time.
There is no denying, though, that If You're Feeling Sinister itself is
consistent, intelligent, and extremely pleasant. If possible, it is even more mellow and fragile than Tigermilk, almost completely acoustic
or, at least, with an almost completely acoustic feel to it, and Stuart makes no
attempts whatsoever to distance himself from his preferred «vulnerable sissy
kid» image. But then, why should he? All of his tough bully classmates were already
probably busy unloading crates in Glasgow Harbour, while he, the back seat
loner, was busy reaping fame, if not necessarily fortune to go along with it.
The ten songs recorded here are very even,
melody-wise, and never seriously stray from the recipés bequested by Rubber Soul-era Beatles, Joni Mitchell,
Nick Drake, Sandy Denny, and their peers. All of them, as could be expected, generate
pretty much the same mood, although Murdoch himself is not able to put a finger
on it in his lyrics. The chorus of ʽThe Boy Done Wrong Againʼ tries to summarize the mood — "All
I wanted was to sing the saddest song / And if you would sing along / I will be
happy now" — but «sadness» is not the permeating state on the album: the
melodies are too lively for that, and the vocals too bright. «Phlegmatic
tenderness» is more like it: the protagonist of If You're Feeling Sinister is essentially that shy, socially inept,
but ultimately kind and affectionate kid in the class who says "I wanna be
friends with you" to his object of affection and hands her a flower,
instead of trying to take a peek under the skirt or something. Oh he's all
grown up now, but he hasn't changed much.
He does see himself fit for a major statement
or two. The title track is not only the longest song on here, taking nearly a
minute of fast-paced strum and piano tuning to get to the first verse and
adding playground noises to the background for importance' sake, but it is also
the most moralistic one — an anti-religious rant, essentially, where the man
not only takes up arms against the Catholic Church, but goes as far as to describe
a girl as being "into S&M and Bible studies / Not everyone's cup of
tea, she would admit to me". The rant is fairly blunt, culminating in the «offensive»
final refrain ("If you are feeling sinister / Go off and see a minister /
Chances are you'll probably feel better / If you stayed and played with
yourself") which Murdoch mumbles rather incoherently (what if a priest
were passing by?) — but if you are not paying too much attention to the lyrics,
you will probably not even get the «ranting» in the first place, so innocent
and fleeting and cuddly is this perky little folk dance.
The overall similarity of the moods and the
melodies almost seems to drive the reviewer like a cattle prod into
concentrating on the lyrics — but the lyrics mostly just serve the moods
anyway, except for a misguided line on two (ʽLike Dylan In The Moviesʼ is a
particularly unlucky title: the refrain goes "If they follow you, don't
look back / Like Dylan in the movies", but although it is nice to know
that Murdoch is well educated on certain elements of Sixties' pop culture,
there is nothing else that would be «Dylanish» about this song, or this musical
approach in general — now Donovan,
that might have been a much better connection, not to mention that Donovan was
also captured in Don't Look Back, so why
not just sing "like Donovan in the movies" instead? Oh well, never
mind). Okay, here is one more example: "At the final moment, I cried / I
always cry at endings". Satisfied? Moving on now.
Actually, there is nowhere left to move:
individual descriptions of these songs would make no sense, because their
melodic underbelly is quite traditional and their atmospheric value is so uniform.
But even if you do not easily memorize the melodies, it would be hard to ignore
the seductiveness — with its tasteful, humble, sensual combination of acoustic
guitars, pianos, and strings, Murdoch's «chamber folk-pop», having filtered out
those few «rockier» elements the boys were uncomfortable with on Tigermilk, reaches its highest level of
perfection here. Later albums could be just as strong, or even contain better
songs every once in a while, but this is where the formula sets in place, so I
guess we shouldn't be too angry at Pitchfork reviewers or anybody else for making
their pick — after all, if you only want to get one Belle & Sebastian
album, you might just as well follow my thumbs up, too, and get this one, and if you want
to get more than one Belle &
Sebastian album, you probably read Byron and Shelley in the evenings by
candlelight, and have no further need for these reviews (especially since,
sooner or later, they are inevitably bound to get more and more sarcastic).
Check "If You're Feeling Sinister" (CD) on Amazon
Check "If You're Feeling Sinister" (MP3) on Amazon
Though not as revered, I prefer the Life Pursuit because there are at least a few styles on that one!
ReplyDeleteIt truly is the only B&S album anyone really needs - damn fine album though.
ReplyDeletedecent tunes, kind of a Smiths meet Zombies thing but good god, the horrible, affected fey vocals ruin it
ReplyDeleteTheir best record bar the dog on wheels ep, which just pips it.
ReplyDelete