Belle & Sebastian - Fold Your Hands Child You Walk Like a Peasant

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Music reviews of Fold Your Hands Child You Walk Like a Peasant

Music Review: Like the title? You'll like the album.
Rating: 2 Stars

Okay. Nobody ever said that Belle and Sebastian's sound was original. But on their first two remarkable albums, Tigermilk and If You're Feeling Sinister, the Glasgow septet managed at the very least to create a satisfying mutant strain of chamber-pop from the twee sensibilities of the Field Mice and Morrisey's humorously morose lyrics. I happen to find their tales of riding city buses and settling down with old books quite beautiful, but stuff of this ilk always runs the risk of losing what little edge it has and becoming utter trite...and that's what we have here.

At the time of its release, The Boy With The Arab Strap looked like a minor misstep in Belle and Sebastian's blooming career. In hindsight however, it seems as though that album coupled with the group's newest release, Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant, are proof of a drying well of creativity on the part of lead singer Stuart Murdoch. Strap at least had "Sleep the Clock Around" to fall back on; I can't spot much here that I'd enjoy listening to repeatedly.

Albums like this are invariably difficult to criticize because there's so little to be offended by in the first place. Groups that don't aspire for grand intentions never have very far to fall. And part of Belle and Sebastian's irresistible charm was the effortless way they turned Murdoch's touchingly melancholy ruminations into melodic, bouncy tunes without any pretensions. But their career has always been dependent on two things: that their lyrics consistently avoided becoming self-parodic, and that the group always had an abundant supply of catchy melodies on hand. On both counts, Belle and Sebastian's formula is beginning to see some wear.

Fans of the album will be quick to point to songs like "There's Too Much Love" and "Woman's Realm" as arguments to the contrary. "Woman's Realm" earns immediate disqualification since it all but duplicates the baseline in Sinister's "Like Dylan In The Movies" and still isn't as good. And I'll concur that "There's Too Much Love" is a good song, but it's the last track, and getting through two-thirds of this album is pretty sufferable. Much of the album is overproduced with string arrangements; the songs without Stuart Murdoch on lead vocals are best avoided. Songs like "Beyond the Sunrise," "Nice Day For A Sulk" and "The Chalet Lines" are just plain bad, the latter probably taking the Worst Of Album award for becoming the first non radio-playable Belle and Sebastian song. On the other hand, I'm sure that millions of fans will likely blush, cover their mouth in shock, giggle in embarrassment, and fall even more head-over-heels in love with the band.

The one real unfortunate casualty of the album is "The Model," which is quite beautiful but I think also the dominating proof of the levels of farce that the band has reached. When the music stops and you're left to hear lines like "It was the best sex that she ever had" and "The girl next door who's famous for showing her chest" it's hard not to feel a little manipulated. The pre-release copy I listened to had a sticker which declared the band "shocking," which never seemed to me to be the point of a group like Belle and Sebastian. The words used to seem effortless, but it seems as if they've now been reduced to tactics which approach the base subtlety of Monty Python's "Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink" sketch.

In a way, I think, your reaction to the new Belle and Sebastian album will most likely parallel your first reaction to hearing that the album was going to be called Fold Your Hands Child You Walk Like A Peasant. If, upon hearing those nine words, you thought, "Oh my God! This is going to be a great Belle and Sebastian album!" then you will probably think this a great Belle and Sebastian album. If, on the other hand, despite liking Belle & Sebastian, you had serious reservations about buying an album with that moniker, you should probably steer clear of this one.

Description of Fold Your Hands Child You Walk Like a Peasant

The eclectic feel of the record owes itself to the fact that this is, by far, Belle & Sebastian's most "record by committee" affair yet, with songwriting contributions from several different band members and songs that seem to have been built up from simple ideas into lush orchestral pieces with the musical input of the band's many different instrumentalists. While Stuart Murdoch still writes and sings the bulk of the material, he collaborates with bandmates on a number of songs, including the delicately soulful "Don't Leave the Light on Baby," written with keyboardist Chris Geddes. Unfortunately, songs by Belle & Sebastian cofounder and bassist Stuart David are not to be found on Fold Your Hands (he left the band during the recording). However, violinist Sarah Martin contributes her first song with the haunting "Waiting for the Moon to Rise," while cellist Isobel Campbell adds the record's most surprising track, "Beyond the Sunrise," sounding like a lost Leonard Cohen gem with its spare and fragile arrangement. Guitarist Stevie Jackson, who contributed some of the better songs on Arab Strap, manages only one on this outing, but it's one of the best: "The Wrong Girl," a tale of misplaced love juxtaposed against swinging Spector- like strings and horns. By the time the band reaches "Women's Realm," an infectious, life-affirming romp, the record's message, although never spelled out, is clear: Through all the melancholy and solitude and terrible things that could go wrong, life is still worth fighting for. --Paul Ducey

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