It’s been three years since Belle & Sebastian’s last full-length album, Write About Love, so I’ve been itching to hear news of a future release.
So imagine my surprise when an email newsletter from Amoeba Records (remember them?) mentioned new music from the Scottish septet.
It turned out to be not a new album but a compilation of B-sides and assorted odds and ends from the past decade. Hey, good enough.
#4 – The Life Pursuit – Belle & Sebastian
The most-represented year in this little reconsideration of top ten lists past is 2006, with four albums. And the top-ranked among those four seven years ago remains the top-ranked today.
At the time, I made a case for Belle & Sebastian’s The Life Pursuit as the best album in the band’s catalog. Today I stand by that assessment with even more confidence.
In looking for good songs to feature this week, I was surprised to see that I hadn’t posted a Belle & Sebastian song for 6 months, and only two in the past year.
I was even more surprised to learn that I’d never featured today’s SOTD, ‘My Wandering Days Are Over,’ one of Belle & Sebastian’s signature songs and a favorite of mine.
Every time I listen to Belle & Sebastian, I’m overcome by this feeling that I never need to listen to anything else.
It’s a quality of their music that doesn’t just strike a nerve but grabs hold of a nerve and strums it like an upright bass.
Another sophomore album, Belle & Sebastian’s If You’re Feeling Sinister was also my first introduction to a band that would become one of my very favorites.
This record served as many people’s first impression of the group, as their debut album, Tigermilk, was not widely available for years after its release. Only when it was re-released on CD following the (relative) success of Sinister did casual fans get to hear it for the first time.
Meet Me In Montauk 