Belle and Sebastian - Belle and Sebastian Write About Love

…Write About Love is Belle and Sebastian's eighth studio album. I mention this because, in spite of owning all eight of them, and having had my years of third-level education more or less entirely soundtracked by the group’s first three long-players (and equally brilliant EPs from the same era), this news actually comes as some surprise: I can only count six from memory. I had also led myself to believe that B&S have endured a lengthy mid-career slump, from which they'd only recently recovered. This, too, has proved to be wide of the mark – on reflection, said slump arguably comprises just one lacklustre album (2000’s Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant) and an underwhelming movie soundtrack (‘02’s Storytelling), which only just about qualifies as a proper album anyway. The truth is that they’re one of the most reliably great bands of the last fifteen years.
 
Listening back to Dear Catastrophe Waitress, the Scots’ sixth LP – on which Stuart Murdoch regained full songwriting control – it’s surprisingly brilliant, while 2006's The Life Pursuit is another high-water mark: the band’s trademark sound spruced up with an almost glam-rock ritziness. …Write About Love, in truth, isn’t quite as good as either, but it still boasts plenty of fine moments. “Make me dance, I want to surrender”, sings Sarah Martin on opener ‘I Didn’t See It Coming’, and it’s the sort of gentle rallying-cry that’s entirely Belle and Sebastian. If the next two tracks, ‘Come On, Sister’ and ‘Calculating Bimbo’ don’t quite live up to the manifesto, then ‘I Want The World To Stop’ quickly makes amends with its widescreen melody and surging chorus. As with every B&S release, there’s one cast-iron classic – in this case, the title-track and lead single. It’s punchy and addictive, and although its theme of escape from the drudgery of the daily grind is one that Murdoch has been peddling since day one, what of it? Here he describes a girl who uses her lunchbreak to “write about a man / He’s intellectual and he’s hot, but he understands” – and it’s a surefire winner.
 
It’s quite seldom that a band’s eighth album turns out to be its best (Animal Collective, anyone?), and that trend isn’t about to be bucked here. …Write About Love certainly isn’t going to inspire the sort of hushed devotion associated with If You’re Feeling Sinister; nor does it stretch the band’s legs much, as the glam stompers on The Life Pursuit did; there’s a little too much filler peppered amid the highlights. But as the latest addition to a great, enduring catalogue, it more than succeeds in keeping the show on the road.