album of the week: 12.1

Belle & Sebastian

Write About Love

Matador (2010)

why you'll love it: Richer sound on slower songs, modest fun pop songs

why you'll hate it: Not as iconic as previous albums. Still too cute for some people to handle

If you've reached album seven without splitting your fanbase between your current satisfied costumers and those aged fans with their arms crossed sneering "you've changed", then you're doing it wrong. From my experience, the story has been that the band has softened its edges; but Belle & Sebastian started out as soft as they come! Over the last decade, they have really swelled out their sound. To some old school fans, they've lost their humility and become a bit too clever and twee.

Write About Love is almost the record longtime fans have been waiting for. It's impossible for the band to return to the limited scope of The Boy With The Arab Strap (1998), but only very briefly do they repeat the tongue-in-cheek upbeat pop popularized in Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003). Instead, we are met with a compromise. The easy going modesty of Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant (2000) is given the production range of The Life Pursuit (2006).

While this album may do no more than frustrate opposite camps of the B&S fanbase, I think it's their most well rounded and accomplished album. They've written a few songs like "Come on Sister" in the recent past, but not with as much restraint. "I Want The World To Stop" is a wonderful example of taking their old songwriting into a new era with a bigger sound. Then there are a few gimmes like "I'm Not Living in The Real World" for newbies, and "Read The Blessed Pages" for the mainstays.

For those new to the band, start here. If you like the louder pop songs, keep working backwards down the discography. If the humble songs do it for go, shoot back to the beginning.