I recently read an interview with Belle & Sebastian guitarist Stevie Jackson. It wasn't a formal interview, it was one of those live Internet fan chats. The questions were relatively shallow, sometimes not questions at all ("I just wanted to say I love your music." "Thank You.")
Many people asked about the new album to be released worldwide on June 6. Stevie said that the album was his favorite work since their underground, cult-followed debut, Tigermilk.
That made me do a double-take.
Don't get me wrong, I love Tigermilk for its humble beginnings; its gentle and unassured whisper upon the Indie-rock/folk genre has always made me smile. What caught me off guard was that Stevie loved Tigermilk more than If You're Feeling Sinister and The Boy With The Arab Strap—not to mention the incredible EP's.
The latter two albums are among my favorites of the past ten years. While Tigermilk is up there, I was confused as to what it had to offer that made him love it more than the later, critically acclaimed albums.
The band's most recent work is obviously their most accomplished. While The Boy With The Arab Strap faced some negative press for weakness and being generally mediocre, it also met with numerous "Album of the Year" praises when it was released in 1998.
The Boy With The Arab Strap was a monumental step for Belle & Sebastian; it has masterful composition, as well as some of their most progressive and strongest work to date ("The Rollercoaster Ride" and the title track come to mind). On the other hand, I can see its faults, although I love it for them.
If You're Feeling Sinister, though, is nothing shy of perfect. Its combination of folk (reminiscent of Nick Drake), pop (think: "The Charley Brown and Snoopy Show"), hope (childhood fantasy) and malaise (disillusioned childhood fantasy) stole the Indie spotlight. Not a large spotlight, but a spotlight nonetheless.
That said, the band's best release up to now is the December 1998 EP This Is Just a Modern Rock Song. With just four previously unreleased songs, this EP shows the most growth for the band. The title track is a seven-minute-long, three-chord progression that starts out with a quiet acoustic guitar and ends in an orchestration of strings, horns, guitars, keyboards, whistles, and drums. "Slow Graffiti" is the band's best single song to date, a slow piano ballad of which words will not do justice.
This brings us back to Tigermilk. It was a humble, quiet beginning that showed promise, amazing promise, indeed, for this impressive octet. But why is it Stevie Jackson's favorite? They have obviously blossomed into one of the most amazing bands of our day—and Stevie loves their most inexperienced album the most?
That odd fact demanded another listen. I know these songs by heart, but that was almost a hindrance. I had to listen to it again, freeing my mind of Tigermilk preconceptions. That's when I realized something: I never experienced Tigermilk the way Stevie Jackson did. Tigermilk was such a limited release, I never heard it until its re-release in July 1999. There was a certain magic that I missed because of this. Listening to it again allowed me to rediscover the little stories it contains; they are more varied than those on the later releases. The musical ecstasy on the newer stuff is here too, only it's even better on Tigermilk, because back then it was new and passionate.
Tigermilk contains the excitement of an ambitious band who are both shy and proud. Belle and Sebastian have grown a lot compositionally since then, but there is a magic about Tigermilk that doesn't appear on the later albums.
That is what Stevie Jackson is talking about. That magic is back on the new album, Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant. More musically mature, this one returns to the magic of the band's oldest days.
As usual, Belle & Sebastian start off the album with a slow tune that sets the mood, "I Fought In A War," a song dominated by horns and E minor. It is a darker tune, touching on deeper issues, than most of their work. "I Fought In A War" is both anonymous and sublime; Murdoch's airy vocals are almost depressing as he sings about "a corpse that just fell into me" in "a war."
Again following the typical pattern for Belle & Sebastian releases, the second track, "The Model," is upbeat and catchy, much like "The Boy With The Arab Strap." This, however, is one of the few tracks that on initial listening sounds like Belle & Sebastian. The final track, "There's Too Much Love" is the only other song that sounds like Belle & Sebastian's familiar style; it's more uptempo than the rest, more like a track from The Boy With The Arab Strap or This Is Just a Modern Rock Song. Unfortunately, these tracks depend too much on the Belle & Sebastian formula rather than on challenging musical boundaries.
To be honest, I never heard the influence of Nick Drake in Belle & Sebastian's music (even though I read about it everywhere) until I heard "Beyond The Sunrise." This is a very Drakeian, almost silent acoustic song. Squeaking guitar strings lie beneath a duet between Isobel Campbell and Mick Cooke, whom we haven't heard on previous releases. His voice is much deeper than Stuart Murdoch's, which only adds to the Nick Drake comparison.
"Waiting For The Moon To Rise" starts with Sarah on whistles and Isobel on vocals once again. It doesn't stand out, but it's representative of the album as a whole—musically complex, discreet, and soothing.
"Don't Leave The Light On Baby" is another track of this nature, but the overall sound is entirely different. It starts with organs reminiscent of "A Spaceboy Dream," but comes across as a much stronger composition.
The next track is the most accessible. Stevie Jackson's "The Wrong Girl" is more upbeat and singable than any of the others. Rather like "Dirty Dream Number Two" (and with similar tight drumwork and orchestral progression), this is the beauty of Belle and Sebastian: they can write a song that sounds cheerfully sing-a-long, while the lyrics express utter depression. At the same time, they create beautiful melodies about commonplace events.
"The Chalet Lines" offers fragile vocals over a muted piano. Murdoch's one-of-a-kind voice is among the most recognizable in the indie crowd. This song is quite representative of his style, and it's the saddest of the lot. The band claims there hasn't been any controversy over this song, but it deals with the issue of rape (with a male singing a female part). It is very tastefully done and ambitious.
"Nice Day For A Sulk" begins with a Carly Simon-like piano intro and turns into a bass progression that Ben Folds Five wishes they could pull off. Though I wasn't too impressed with it at first hearing, it's become the album's standout track for me.
"Women's Realm" is another one of the few upbeat songs on this album. With dueling piano and bass, followed by layered vocals, this reminds me what I loved so much about their last release. The only thing missing is the hand-claps.
"Family Tree" sounds a lot like The Gentle Waves, both compositionally and thematically, though it remains uniquely Belle & Sebastian. It isn't as lyrically complex as some of their songs, but it's meant to be childlike and simple, so it succeeds in its aims. (It is also refreshing to hear so much of Isobel Campbell on this record. [She sings "Family Tree" but didn't write it.])
While Stuart Murdoch is still clearly the frontman, songwriting credits are shared again, as they were on The Boy With The Arab Strap. Isobel Campbell wrote "Beyond The Sunrise," and Stevie Jackson adds another to his portfolio. For the first time, Sarah Martin pens her own as well.
This is a much more fluid album than their last, and it takes another brilliant step towards expert composition. As usual, the lyrics are the last thing I focus on when getting a new Belle and Sebastian album, because I am so swept away by the melodies. After dozens of listens, however, Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant is their most lyrically complex album, as well as musically superior in composition and arrangement. They continue to paint intimate portraits of subtlety in ways that other bands dare not attempt.
In a way, Stevie is right; this is among the band's best work. It is like Tigermilk in its sense of subtlety—a unique story not trying to steal the spotlight, but shining on its own. It is better than their last two albums in that it doesn't have to be catchy or flashy to hold attention. It progresses beyond the experiments on The Boy With The Arab Strap and This Is Just A Modern Rock Song and fine tunes the best parts. It takes a quieter path and succeeds admirably, not in forging new frontiers in indie music, but in crafting an already recognizable sound into pure pop genius.
