Belle and Sebastian: The Boy With The Arab Strap CLASSIC REVIEW

Belle and Sebastian are a quaint little band from Glasgow, Scotland. They produced (and still do to some extent) some of the best pop songs in all of indie music. In recent years the band has expanded their sonic pallet, and have moved towards more grandiose portrayals of pop music that is less Nick Drake, and more Beach Boys in execution. However, I would like to point to the early goings of this band's music, as most critics often do. Though I'm not here to talk about the obvious choice, If You're Feeling Sinister; an album that has won accolades on darn near every major music site and magazine known to man. Of course, that LP deserves it, but as a newly initiated fan, I actually think that (at least in the eyes of certain critics) The Boy With The Arab Strap falls by the wayside when the discussion of the best B&S albums is brought up.

That's a shame really because I think that TBWTAS is not only as good as IYFS, but shows that the band was capable of doing something a bit different, yet still retain every ounce of charm that made them such a compelling band. TBWTAS is the same mixture of sweet and melancholy with just a touch of cheekiness. Tracks like "It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career" and "Summer Wasting" see lead writer and singer Stuart Murdoch doing what he does best, writing songs about people and seasons, but making them feel like the most beautiful, yet tragic things you could imagine. Other songs, such as "Seymour Stein" or "Is It Wicked Not To Care?" show the other members of the band flaunting their vocals, and in the case of "Seymour Stein", they manage to be just as conceptual and romantic as Murdoch. 

Like its predecessor, TBWTAS flows elegantly from track to track, but this LP has a few more surprises than IYFS. For example, the track "A Space Boy Dream" is a surreal spoken-word piece that lands halfway through the album and essentially breaks up the A and B sides of the LP in a very interesting way. 

I find that I enjoy the sincerity and earnestness of IYFS, but I find TBWTAS to be the more confident of the two. They had nothing to prove at this point and were well on there way to becoming one of the most loved bands in the indie music scene. The band still holds that place to this day, though I think the music they produce now is a bit more straightforward. However, I still can't deny that their early output is some of the most delightful and beautifully breezy music I have ever heard. 

9.5/10