Review Summary: Belle and Sebastian write about mediocrity.
It’s interesting to look at the musical path Belle and Sebastian have taken with each subsequent album. Much of
The Life Pursuit had a distinct ’70s sound to it, a gradual evolution from the simple, acoustic sound of classics like “Expectations”. Following this trajectory, the band should be moving towards the early ’80s, and with their newest studio album,
Write About Love, it seems as if they’ve hit something of a dead end. Gone are the joyful hooks of
The Life Pursuit and razor-sharp turns of phrase, replaced by a sound that is somehow mawkish, dull, and insipid all at the same time.
Most of the album's songs deal with adulthood, their protagonists disillusioned and frustrated with life and (presumably) love. Not to say that Stuart Murdoch's characters haven't
always been a fairly sad and lonely lot, but on
Write About Love, they indulge in more maudlin navel-gazing than usual. “Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John”, a duet with Norah Jones, opens with Murdoch crooning, “What a waste I could have been your lover/what a waste I could have been your friend/I think love is like a blossom that fades so quick/when it’s blowing up a storm in May” -
mein gott. And as hard as it may be to believe, the song is even soggier than it reads on paper, Norah Jones’ furniture-polish voice rendering it about as interesting as – well, any Norah Jones song. It isn’t a particularly
bad track, per se, but it’s decidedly flavorless.
Unfortunately, the same could be said about most of the album. Songs like “Calculating Bimbo” and "The Ghost of Rockschool" are pleasant enough, but don’t provide much substance beyond simply being pretty backdrops. Perfectly produced backdrops, mind you -
Write About Love has the same polished sheen as
The Life Pursuit, but whereas that album benefited from the sparkling production, here the finesse puts a glaring spotlight on the album's deficiencies. The performances are staid and by-the-book (you can practically hear the click track behind Richard Colburn's lifeless drumming on opener "I Didn't See it Coming"), the arrangements seem strangely loose and unfinished, and the songwriting simply isn't up to par.
Some of this writing is straight-up
lazy. Take the chorus of “Come On Sister”: “It’s fun thinking of you like a movie star/and it’s dumb thinking of you like the way that you were.” It could be an intelligent, even insightful statement, but the line is written in such an inane manner that it ends up feeling utterly inconsequential. And “Write About Love,” placed right at the center of the album, is devoid of any subtlety whatsoever, featuring actress Carey Mulligan chirping away (pretty well, might I hastily add) about how much she hates her job before delivering the truly atrocious lyric “he’s intellectual and he’s hot/but he understands”.
The song, released as a promotional single to a middling response, may verge on self-parody, but at least it isn't nearly as offensive as "I'm Not Living In The Real World", the most obnoxious and garish song on the album, what with its contrived silliness, cringe-worthy call-and-response vocals, and grating preciousness. It's as if Stevie Jackson had the sudden urge to channel Kevin Barnes, with all the insistent quirkiness and none of the lyrical and melodic mastery. Only on "I Want The World To Stop" do Murdoch and Co. wake from their stupor; the song is an unqualified success, essentially taking all the redeeming elements scattered throughout the album and fusing them into a perfect four-and-a-half minute morsel. "Let me step out of my shell," Murdoch sings; fitting, since it's the one instance where the band seems to be doing so.
These inspired moments are distressingly few and far between, lost in a sea of sonic blandness. Without Murdoch's empathetic lyricism and subtly subversive wit, without the infectious melodies, and without the appealing humility that made
If You're Feeling Sinister such a classic, Belle and Sebastian seem completely faceless. Which is exactly why
Write About Love ends up being such a disappointment; it isn’t a terrible album by any means, but it’s something arguably worse – a forgettable one.
