Belle and Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress
(Rough Trade)
I command you to ignore everything you read about this album (except this). I am more dumbfounded by the backlash accompanying this album's release than anything else this year. After the instant and massive success of If You're Feeling Sinister one can only imagine what kind of crisis Stuart Murdoch must have gone through. Immediate and widespread success can destroy many artists and it's clear when you listen to later albums that the band was scrambling to produce another masterpiece. Each successive album fell more and more short of the mark, finally culminating in the mess that is the Storytelling soundtrack. Now, at last, Belle & Sebastian have returned with what is far and away the finest pop album to have been released in years.
The secret to the album's success, other than obvious brilliant songwriting, is that they've finally started doing something different as opposed to just trying to recreate past victories. Stuart Murdoch's unmistakable voice and style is still present but is now placed alongside Stevie Jackson songs that are actually good, increasingly complex and epic arrangements (evident in the gigantic list of contributors), and an engineer who finally realized that the name Belle & Sebastian doesn't always have to be synonymous with tiny-sounding drums and guitars. Yes, the music is at times shamelessly retro, such as on the Steely Dan tribute "Roy Walker", but they have such confidence and conviction in their devotion to the past that I find it hard to react in any way other than with complete amazement at how perfect they harness the energy and spirit of the music they're imitating while still retaining their own ideas and character. And in case you might think the album is overblown and excessive, one need only to listen to songs like "Lord Anthony" or the simple and austere "Piazza, New York Catcher" to know that this album has everything your favorite Belle & Sebastian album has plus a lot more.
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