Belle & Sebastian - Write About Love

When I heard Belle & Sebastian were to release Write About Love, their first album in four years, I was more excited than a pre-pubescent child in the possession of a top-shelf magazine. But unfortunately, on the first listen I was left slightly disappointed.

To me some of the songs had fallen in the abyss of the easy listening genre. After four years away from making music, you would expect the usual razor sharp wit, devilish charm and thick Scottish accents in droves. All of the aforementioned things are on the new album, but not to the extent you would hope.

I think the reason for this is that work on the album only began this February. The lack of time spent on the album shows in the lack of inventiveness and originality; some ideas have been borrowed from previous albums.

As a devout fan, I have listened to the album at least a dozen times, and after these repeated listens, the Belle & Sebastian of old begin to shine through. The stand out tracks being ‘I Didn’t See It Coming’, ‘I Want the World To Stop’ and the title track ‘Write About Love’.

Oscar-nominated actress, Carey Mulligan supplies the female vocals on the title track to good effect. I was pleasantly surprised by her vocals and my estimations of her have gone up ten fold but the partnership of Stuart Murdoch and Sarah Martin, in my mind, can never be bettered. The other guest vocalist on the album is Norah Jones on ‘Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John’, but I’m sorry to say this is a non-starter and is as tedious as any track with Norah Jones in.

To conclude, it is not Belle & Sebastian’s best but we all know that. The fact that they are just back making music delights me enough and I’m sure they will be amazing on tour. Lets just all have our fingers crossed that their next album is as hit filled as ‘The Life Pursuit’ and ‘The Boy With The Arab Strap’. I look forward to hearing more from my favourite band in the future.