Some 10 years have passed since Belle and Sebastian was founded by Stuart Murdoch (singer/songwriter) and Stuart David (bass guitar) in a caf in Glasgow where they met on a government training scheme and a lot has changed.
David left Belle and Sebastian in 2000 to concentrate on his writing career and his own band, Looper, while Murdoch has taken the band once considered to be “lo-fi underachievers” to indie-pop juggernauts.
On this, their seventh proper album, The Life Pursuit, Belle and Sebastian find themselves trotting on both new and familiar ground.
Dear Catastrophe Waitress, from 2003, with the sumptuous production of Trevor Horn (T.A.T.U.) seems but a transition in Belle and Sebastian’s world of bubblegum pop.
The Life Pursuit was recorded and mixed at the Sound Factory and Sunset Sound Studios in Los Angeles with Beck producer Tony Hoffer.
The album has a robust, full, organic sound due in part to recording live with a few overdubs and the frequent use of melancholy Hammond organ, flute and the delivery of the best drumming Richard Colburn has ever done in Belle and Sebastian.
Starting with the opening track, “Act of the Apostle,” we follow Murdoch’s cast of characters that lead us through accounts of religious woes of a young girl wondering “What would I do to believe?” to tales of familiar young college girls of his back pages.
When Belle and Sebastian leave the embryonic story they offer pieces of unadulterated pop gold in “White Collar Boy,” “The Blues Are Still Blue” and “Another Sunny Day” where only Belle and Sebastian harmonies can make “f-k all” sound beautiful.
Ten tracks after the opener in “Act of the Apostle II” we revisit the same girl in search for religion as she is told to “bugger off, I’ve got work to do” after she politely asks admission to a choir service she has traveled a great distance to hear.
Religion, the struggle to find faith in “the face behind the voice” and Murdoch’s Christian beliefs are a recurring theme throughout The Life Pursuit just as it has on past Belle and Sebastian works.
The first single “Funny Little Frog” with its energetic bass line and tuneful trumpet tells of a passionate love affair that by the end of the song turns out to be in the raconteur’s mind and nothing more.
The Life Pursuit proves that Stuart Murdoch and Co., like the Rolling Stones in the ’60s, can adapt and reinvent themselves and their sound seven albums into a career that has had its shares of ups and down.
8.5 out of 10
If you appreciate The Life Pursuit or any other Belle and Sebastian releases you can seem the live on March 8 in Nashville at the historic Ryman Auditorium over spring break.
Also at the show will be special guests the New Pornographers.

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