Belle and Sebastian Write About Love

Fourteen years after the release of their first album, Belle and Sebastian still understand what it takes to sound young, delightful, and most importantly, in love. “Write About Love” is timeless—true to the band’s sound with fun, foot-tapping, head bobbing tunes and raw, romantic, guy-girl ballads. While it will draw praise from their initial fan base, the album is also being released at a time when its theme and style will appeal to fans of small budget, soundtrack-oriented, young-love films like “Juno” and “500 Days of Summer.” The album explores the different facets of love—some tracks wax flirtatious, some romantic, and others nostalgic.

With love as the core of the album, it’s no surprise that some of the best tracks feature back-and-forth dialogue as well as overlapping harmonies between the male and female singers. “I Didn’t See it Coming” starts off with soft, surrendering female vocals, but then blossoms with lead male singer Stuart Murdoch’s lighthearted sound and an unexpected but fresh electronic bridge. The song is also one of the album’s standout due to its surprising use of washy distorted synths which, when dreamily layered over meshing male and female vocals, reminds listeners of a 1980s dance floor.

Belle and Sebastian also evoke young love through their light instrumentation and lyrics to match. “I Want the World to Stop” has a swirly, half-mellow, half-feel-good sound. The sultry repetition of “I want the world to stop / Give me the morning / Give me the understanding,” echoing off into the background is reminiscent of long, sleepless, lovesick nights. By pushing and pulling at the perfect moments—the vocals fading in and out and exchanging lines with one another—the band creates a catchy pop song full of whimsy, toying with sound as love toys with young souls.

“Come On Sister,” while a more upbeat song, still reminds listeners of what it feels like to be a teenager foolishly in love. Joyful piano scales and arpeggios run up and down in the background, and above it is sung “I can’t sleep, no I can’t sleep... / And it’s fun thinking of you like a movie star.” The song too evokes memories of being a silly adolescent who privately (and futilely) idolizing one’s crushes.

However, other attempts at playful songwriting sometimes flop, due to lyrics that don’t make sense. The title track, “Write About Love,” featuring guest singer Carey Mulligan, sounds clever and witty musically with its abrupt pauses and fluctuating melodies, but unfortunately, its lyrics can’t match the task. In fact, writing about love never seemed so scattered and confusing; ironically, the band opens the song by singing “I know a spell / That would make you well / Write about love, it could be in any tense, but it must make sense.” The rest of the song never clearly relates to the initial theme, with Murdoch singing about taking his lunch up to the roof of his office building and praying. Nevertheless, the song’s melody (which at times is reminiscent of the sped-up, Beach Boys-ified version of The Mamas & The Papas’ “California Dreaming”) is captivating, and makes it a worthwhile single.

Though through the course of the album love loses a bit of its excitement, there is only one real sore track on the album—“Calculating Bimbo.” With its uninteresting melody, it could easily be mistaken for a sleepy, old fashioned wedding song. Only halfway through does the band attempt to salvage the song in a minor-key interlude. Just when the track starts to get intriguing though, it returns to its initial lifelessness.

Despite this weak point, Belle and Sebastian, completely redeem themselves with the poignant finale, “Sunday’s Pretty Icons,” which ties together all the themes of love they have been exploring through the course of the album. The song not only starts by bringing all of the vocalists together as one, but it also transitions beautifully into a series of guy/girl responses. Furthermore, it grows from a youthful whisper into an enveloping blanket of sound supported by an amazing instrumental ending. After listening to the stripped-down “Read The Blessed Pages” listeners are rewarded with this powerful love anthem.

By mentioning “Every girl you ever admired / Every boy you ever desired / Every love you ever forgot” in this final track, Belle and Sebastian flood listeners with fanciful memories and good vibrations. They are fairly successful in conveying these feelings throughout “Write About Love,” reminding fans how fun it is to listen to the sounds of love.