Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant

Today should have been Abbey Road, but it appears that all of my kosher copies of Beatles albums, barring the White Album are unplayable in my car, Let It Be I got to play as I keep a copy in the car. It’s a pain, it probably would have got 8.
That’s neither here nor there though and you will never know my thoughts on Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.
Next along was the 2000 album by Belle and Sebastian, Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant.
Today was the first time I listened to this album as a whole, I can’t recall buying it either, most of the tracks were new to me it has to be said. I am unsure why I hadn’t listened to it, but its possible that I won’t listen to the CD again.
The best thing that I can say about this album, a disappointing album, is that it is very derivative, derivative of Belle and Sebastian, it sounds like Belle and Sebastian, it sounds like every other Belle and Sebastian album and a lot of the songs sound like watered down versions of other Belle and Sebastian songs.
Its quite a downbeat album and if I didn’t know better I would say as a band they were in turmoil as no one appears to be trying, the strings on one of the tracks are a direct lift of the strings on another Belle and Sebastian album, and this is the pattern for many of the tracks on the album.
There is a particular string sound, there is a particular way of singing, the whole sound of Belle and Sebastian is the sound of a band treading water and cheating their fans, it’s the sound of a band running out of steam. A very poor and a very generous 5 out of 10.



The Wrong Girl by Belle and Sebastian

The Boy With The Arab Strap

The Boy With The Arab Strap is the in car Cd of choice today, the third album by Belle and Sebastian.
I am getting a little CD fatigue at the moment, I have a hankering for NOFX on my commute but aware that in a short period I have time off for Leeds Festival and a holiday I am being quite strict and sticking to the CD’s, there isn’t anything wrong with Belle and Sebastian but I really could do with a little non B action.
The album is a good one, its perhaps from their golden period, a time when not only albums were great, but ep’s and all the tracks on those ep’s were just as stunning.
The only real downside of thias album is one track and that is the jazz tinged A Space Boy Dream, its relation is more akin to Bitches Brew than Five Leaves Left, for some that’s a good thing, for me that’s not the case.
Outside of that it is Belle and Sebastian by numbers and fulfilling an unwritten obligation to the fans to provide up beat indie. That up beat indie is evident in droves, from Dirty Dream Number Two to the title track, from Sleep the Clock Around to A Summer Wasting, all great steering wheel bongos stuff.
The tone is more broodier on other tracks, the magnificent Seymour Stein or the Isobel Campbell sung Is It wicked Not To Care, all of this makes it a more than enjoyable listen, but it isn’t NOFX. 8 out of 10.



The Boy With The Arab Strap by Belle and Sebastian

Dear Catastrophe Waitress

Dear Catastrophe Waitress by Belle and Sebastian was the in car music today. An album that always makes me think it’s the soundtrack to a Stanley Baker film, Perfect Friday if we are going to be specific.
Its an album that starts stray from their Nick Drake influenced roots and picks its influence from 60’s pop as opposed to 60’s folk, there is even hints of northern soul on here.
Stay Loose diverges from both sounds in that its almost 70’s new wave/80’s synth pop, at times sounding like former Hefner frontman Darren Hayman. It’s a diverse album on the whole, but still retaining the Belle and Sebastian sound.
When I first heard this album I was a bit unsure but repeated listens has made me realise it is one of their best albums, stronger than the Life Pursuit, and as good as Boy With The Arab Strap, maybe.
This would normally be the last of the week, but as I am working over the weekend you get two bonus discs, I daresay it will be Billy Bragg, this though, this gets 8 out of 10.




Roy Walker by Belle and Sebastian

If You're Feeling Sinister

Back to the in car CD’s this week and kicking things off is the Belle and Sebastian album, If You’re Feeling Sinister. Released n Jeepster records in 1996, it was the second album by the band, the follow up to TigerMilk but the first material I had heard by them.
In years to come people will recall vividly where they were and what they were doing when they heard Michael Jackson had died, and perhaps the only time the word similarly has been used with regards Michael Jackson and Belle and Sebastian, similarly I recall vividly where I was when I first heard Belle and Sebastian, and also the second time I had heard Belle and Sebastian. The first time was round at good friend Jons house, he had heard a track on late night radio I think and decided to buy the album, and subsequently make me listen, I sat there in awed silence, music at that point in 96 couldn’t really get any better than that. I duly bought my own copy and made sure that my wife heard it, she didn’t like it on first listen.
I think this album, as indie albums go is one of the most important and groundbreaking there is. It spawned copyists, some of whom still exist today and across its ten tracks it created a blueprint for good indie.
The line up on this album is the best line up and after a few listens today I realise it is as fresh and as excellent as the day that I first heard it.
This is easily a 10 out of 10, and personally I think it’s an essential album that puts you in a poorer position for not hearing it.



Fox In The Snow by Belle and Sebastian

Tigermilk

Tigermilk today. Belle and Sebastians debut album, but from a purchasing perspective, their third. I rather vividly the first and up till now, the last time that I heard this album, I lived in Brookside at the time and me and my wife were sat in our back garden listening to it. It really disappointed to be honest, it came off the back of I you’re feeling sinister and The boy with the Arab Strap, and in my opinion it didn’t measure up to those albums. So, it really has remained unlistened to for 10 years.
So ten years later, what of it? Bearing in mind Belle and Sebastian could easily make it in to my ten favourite bands ever, well, enough to say the years have been kind and it certainly is not as bad as I thought, if anything age has been an improver, and it fits nicely within their catalogue. Certainly some tunes I am familiar with, as they have been on singles or soundtracks, but on the whole it is new ground for me.
The whole point of this relistening experiment was to go back to things that I had written off or missed and this is a prime example, a real ly enjoyable album that captures what I like about Belle and Sebastian, with very little wrong with it, the trebley electronic track messed with my cars speakers no end mind, not to mention my hearing, but that aside, it is all text book B&S, and an overlooked travesty that has been sat gathering dust next to Bernard Butler singles.
So 8 out of 10. Settle down for the B’s, they are along with the S’s my largest section and I see them lasting months.



The State I Am In by Belle And Sebastian