Belle & Sebastian: The Boy With the Arab Strap

The Glasgow-based musical cooperative Belle & Sebastian's out-of-nowhere American debut If You're Feeling Sinister was one of last year's most striking albums. The tightly structured, but never predictable, pop and the literate, fey lyrics of singer and songwriter Stuart Murdoch combined to create a sound that prompted thoughts along the lines of, "Oh, so that's what's been missing." "No one writes them like they used to, so it may as well be me," Murdoch sang on "Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying," and it sounded like a mission statement; sunny-sounding British pop and sensitive alienation hadn't gone so tightly hand-in-glove since The Smiths, a comparison from which the group, however disingenuously, shies away. Sinister was followed by a series of exciting EPs (Lazy Line Painter Jane, Dog On Wheels, and 3…6…9 Seconds Of Light) that sometimes echoed that album and sometimes didn't, expanding B&S's sound in ways that worked more often than not. For every song that didn't quite connect, there were two that connected brilliantly, indicating that the eight (and sometimes more) band members weren't content to repeat a winning formula. The follow-up to Sinister, The Boy With The Arab Strap, is in the vein of those EPs. Boy offers up pleasures less immediate than Sinister, but they're ultimately just as substantial. "It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career," the title track, and "A Summer Wasting" have a familiar, acoustic-dominated sound. But then there's the antiquated electronic noises heard on "Sleep The Clock Around" and "Is It Wicked Not To Care," which hands the vocals over to a female member (the typically cryptic liner notes don't indicate a name). While it might be a better album without the spoken-word "A Space Boy Dream" and the uncharacteristically terse "Chickfactor," it's possible to see their inclusion as a good thing. (The same can't be said, of course, for the occasional moments that sing the pains-of-being-a-rock-star blues. Nobody, except possibly other rock stars, cares.) While not a pristine instant classic like its predecessor, The Boy With The Arab Strap announces that Belle & Sebastian is in it for the long haul, and seemingly committed to not standing still. As long as it keeps turning out material as lovely as the album-closing "The Rollercoaster Ride," that's a wonderful thing.