Boy With the Arab Strap

Belle & Sebastian - Boy With the Arab Strap

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CD Details

Artist: Belle & Sebastian
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1998-09-08
Music Label: Matador Records
Soundtracks:

It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career
Sleep The Clock Around
Is It Wicked Not To Care?
Ease Your Feet In The Sea
A Summer Wasting
Seymour Stein
A Space Boy Dream
Dirty Dream Number Two
The Boy With The Arab Strap
Chickfactor
Simple Things
The Rollercoaster Ride

Music reviews of Boy With the Arab Strap

Music Review: A Sequel To Be Loved As An Equal (* * * * 1/3)
Rating: 4 Stars

Belle & Sebastian are completely unique but not at all radical. When I first heard them, I thought of them as a combination of Nick Drake and Love. I was obviously not the first person to make such comparisons, but it sells the band very short to think of their sound as simply a pastiche. Their music and lyrics can be painfully melancholic or joyously inspiring, usually in effect rather than intent. Leader Stuart Murdoch can't possibly be oblivious to the effect of his songs on listeners, but he doesn't come across as forcing emotions onto them.

The Boy With the Arab Strap is the 1998 follow-up to If You're Feeling Sinister, which is generally regarded as the band's masterpiece. I personally think this is unfortunate, because it has become the standard by which all of their subsequent releases have been judged. Yes, it is a Great (capital G) record, but I do not think that its immediate successor or their 2003 return to form (Dear Catastrophe Waitress) are any less appealing. But it was for many the first impression of the band spreading its patented sound over the length of a whole record, so perhaps the other releases brought with them a sense of diminishing returns. Nevertheless, The Boy With the Arab Strap is as good of a place as either of the two aforementioned records to begin to appreciate this wonderful Scottish group.

The opening track on this album picks up where If You're Feeling Sinister left off. It is a representative B&S tale of a young life gone horribly wrong: "He had a stroke at the age of 24/It could have been a brilliant career". If that doesn't hit you where it hurts, you will soon be wishing that Murdoch weren't so sincere when he sings lyrics like "he is dribbling spit tonight" and "he wets himself for the final time". These lines might sound gimmicky or corny when read, but Murdoch's voice is too honest for one to not take him seriously. (These things happen when one has a stroke, right?) "A Summer Wasting", on the other hand, is a cautionary tale of how, as George Bernard Shaw would say, youth is wasted on the young, or by the young, as the case may be. Clearly, there is little on this record to boost one's spirits, except maybe the fathomless truth and bittersweet beauty of the songs.

Most of The Boy With the Arab Strap is made up of what fans expect from B&S, and love them for, represented nicely by the hat trick of tracks that close the disc: the lovelorn melancholy of "Chickfactor", the guitar-driven "Simple Things", and "The Rollarcoaster Ride", which continues the story of the Judy, whose dream of horses closed out the previous record. One could say that this CD starts and ends where the other left off. However, they are not afraid to pull a few tricks to keep their sound fresh. Thus, this is not really a holding pattern for the band, but even if it were, it would be a hell of a pattern to hold. One particular standout is the spoken-word "A Space Boy Dream". Not only is there the wonderful, Scottish-accented narration, but also the staccato, Bitches Brew-like trumpets. (Decorative trumpets also adorn the uptempo ode to nocturnal emissions - ? - "Dirty Dream Number 2".) But the more important addition are the female vocals, which in hindsight are conspicuously absent from If You're Feeling Sinister. Although Stuart Murdoch is the main songwriter and is thus the best interpreter of his own lyrics, his songs lend themselves nicely to female vocals, be they lead ("Is It Wicked Not To Care?") or backing ("Sleep the Clock Around"). In short, TBWTAS isn't simply more of the same.

Few musical treats are as enjoyable, wholesome, and ultimately life-affirming as Belle & Sebastian at their best. B&S is not the type of group for whom failure to break new ground is a shortcoming. Music doesn't need to be groundbreaking when it is as damn near perfect as this. In fact, the best compliment that can be made about any of their CDs is that it sounds like all the other ones. That is what fans count on Belle & Sebastian for: to deliver a full serving of invincibly delicate, childlike pop treasures that wouldn't exist but for the fact that they create them for us. And even if IYFS is a "better" album, there are things on this record that can't be found on that one. Our cup runneth over.

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Description of Boy With the Arab Strap

The quirky Glaswegian outfit's highly acclaimed & highly anticipated 1998 album featuring 12 timeless pop songs that are neither pretentious nor too cute. A 1998 Jeepster/ Matador release.

Belle and Sebastian follow up the considerable promise of 1997's fantastic If You're Feeling Sinister with an album that is, unbelievably, even better. The Boy with the Arab Strap is an immediately infectious and delicious pastiche of fey, Nick Drake-ian vocals; lilting pop melodies; shimmery arrangements; croony wonder; and tortured, lit-smart lyrics. Belle and Sebastian are smarter than the Smiths, wittier than the Beach Boys, more fun than the Velvet Underground, and even more inscrutable than R.E.M. That's heavy company, but The Boy with the Arab Strap proves they deserve to be belles of the ball. --Tod Nelson

This highly anticipated album from Belle and Sebastian arrives with every hope satisfied. Each song is a cunning short story that wraps itself around you like a cozy couch throw. The loose theme running through this 12-song reverie is seduction. It plays out in both the drowsy sexual hopes of principal songwriter Stuart Murdoch's idle protagonists and the giddiness of bandmate Stevie Jackson's "Seymour Stein" and "Chickfactor," which document his bewitchment by the city of New York and its beautiful girls and florid pitchmen. The complex arrangements favor a whimsical diversity best experienced in "Sleep the Clock Around," which features synthesizer bloops, trumpets, and bagpipes! If you haven't figured out that this Scottish eight-piece deserves every iota of hype it's receiving, it's time to have your ears checked and your record collection gone over by a certified professional. --Lois Maffeo

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