Belle and Sebastian: In Pursuit of Consistency

The traditional way of telling the Belle and Sebastian story goes like this: after three classic albums of bittersweet folk-pop, they released an unmitigated flop after a failed attempt at "democracy," then returned with a sort of "comeback" that reasserted them as Stuart Murdoch's band, and gave them a new direction.

Now let's back up a second, because I have some problems with that. First of all, what was so bad about Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant? If you ask me, it was a fine collection of songs, inferior to If You're Feeling Sinister (the undisputed masterpiece) only in its lack of focus. Second, what was so great about Dear Catastrophe Waitress (that would be the "comeback," for those unfamiliar with the band). It was a new direction to be sure, but not an overly satisfying one. It seemed to indicate to me only that Belle and Sebastian do, in fact, have a decent budget to spend on recording, and that Stuart Murdoch in particular has a very large record collection. There were no moments of clear inspiration on Dear Catastrophe Waitress, and every song seemed to have been written from a standpoint that started with somebody saying, "Let's try to write a song that sounds like _____." If it had been the first Belle and Sebastian album, I'd probably have pegged them as sub-Wondermints classic pop imitators (not that there's anything wrong with the Wondermints).

Their new album, the follow-up to Dear Catastrophe Waitress, called The Life Pursuit, is much in the same vein, so naturally, it doesn't seem all that great to me either. As with its predecessor, it's a textbook "Name the Influence!" record. "Funny Little Frog?" How about "Death On Two Legs" by Queen (at least for the beginning of that chord progression)? "Song for Sunshine?" Sly Stone during the verses is obvious, but extra points if you came up with Todd Rundgren for the (admittedly gorgeous) chorus. "Dress Up in You?" Earlier Belle and Sebastian!

The Life Pursuit is not by any means a bad album, but is there any chance of if getting any heavy rotation after the next few months are past? Let's put it this way: the last time I put on Dear Catastrophe Waitress (which I was excited enough to run out and buy in a store the day it was released) was probably around when I was trying to convince people to consider Dennis Kucinich in the 2004 Democratic primary elections. The Life Pursuit is probably a step above their last outing, and it's nothing if not at least thoroughly pleasant, with many fine pop moments to be found, but let's be serious. Am I really supposed to care about this after listening to If You're Feeling Sinister? Maybe that's unfair, but there's too much good music in the world to settle for less.