Belle and Sebastian - The BBC Sessions

Belle and Sebastian are my favourite band. They have sound tracked the last few years, with each album that I have acquired being more worrisome than the previous, as I come dangerously close to exhausting my ability to find new material of theirs to covet and cherish. It was earlier this year that I finally took the plunge and picked up the maligned Storytelling and the gorgeous Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant – both these albums split opinion of the band down the middle like a lightning strike.

So, hearing that they have a new album on the way, albeit seemingly a soundtrack to a film, I knew I was in safe hands – then they announced the grandest prize off all for a fan, a collection of rare recordings of the band during their heyday.

And this collection is no mean collection. Unlike the recent Smiths best-of that should be revered for being able to make a great singles band such as the Smiths and turning them into a soulless cash in best-of collection. This album is a 2 CD set of BBC recordings from sessions taken during the era of the band that is their ethereal peak, 1996 to 2001. Here there are versions of their grandest songs, such as Dylan in the Movies and a rather early version of Lazy Line Painter Jane.

The version of I Could Be Dreaming is pure poptastic genius – a perfect version of one of the bands greatest songs. Also, The Stars of Track and Field is one of the darkest songs the band have written, and is deeper, echoing here like never before, a shine of dark spreading over the production.

The first CD is a good addition to the back catalogue, even if it is essentially a tapered selection, obviously limited by what the band recorded. The second CD is a live concert from Belfast, which has a few rather interesting songs, such as fan-sang covers of I’m Waiting for the Man and The Boys Are Back In Town, proving that the band have a little more to their live performances rather than just playing the album tracks live.

The problem is that we already have extensive collections of live version of songs from the band – Push Barman to Open Old Wounds is the greatest collection of B-Sides and non-album tracks ever assembled and the live version of If You’re Feeling Sinister is a pinnacle for the band. BBC Sessions is essential, and you really should get it, but there is so much more to this band, so much more to discover. The only thing that I can think of that is more exciting than listening to this album and this band over and over again is the feeling that you have not even discovered them yet – truly one of the greatest Scottish bands of all time.

8/9

6Shuffle - 04/09/08

Stereophonics – Check My Eyelids for Holes
Stereophonics’ debut album stands the test of time as a great debut and a good statement about the way the 1990s were for music. Coming at the tail end of the decade they might have been slightly late they are the band that became Oasis in terms of critical derision, especially from some on their previous albums from some super amazing reviewers. This song is a perfectly good highlight from their early album and is a good place to start if you are wanting to listen to the band for the first time, but knowing people who read this, they will already dipped their toes in that pool and said “Nah, that is too shallow for me.”

The Smiths – There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
Ah, the Smiths, one of my favourite bands ever. This, one of the most mystical tracks from the 80s superstars, is one of my favourite tracks, if only for the lovely flutle like woodwind “dodododo” at the end which is great. Morriessey, signing about death and killing people, never gets old, as Mozzer runs around a jaunty guitar rhythm dotted with strings swaying back and forth over the arrangement.

The Ramones – Blitzkrieg Bop
My attempt to write about these tracks as they play might be hard here as this is a punk track that last no more than 2 minutes of quick rock and roll. This band don’t rank that high on my favour lists but I can admire their zeitgeist that they pioneered and what they stood for. The “Hey Ho Lets Go!” has became a signature of punk rock and –

(The Song Ended)

Lightning Bolt – Assassins
Well, how do you describe this band to someone. I have no idea how to explain this band without it sounding like I am talking rubbish, so I am not going to try. The sound like a war fighting a set of pianos inside a traffic cone aimed directly at a loudhailer. It is intense and very technical… not at all like some of the other stuff I listen to. In fact this is probably as left field as some of my music taste goes. Still, it has some charged energy about it and listening to it makes me very excited and my feet tap fast than a strobelight.

The Verve – Lucky Man
The new verve album will be reviewed here soon as I get my hands on it, but I don’t expect much from their newest single, Love is Noise, which is ruined with the little “DooDooo” sample played through every single second of it. I think it would have been much better without the over use of it and maybe sounding a little less like Richard Ashcroft’s solo stuff. Which is what Lucky Man sounds like. Their album, Urban Hymns, is fantastic, but this song will forever be ruined as the song I first learned to play on the drums, and hearing it strangled by a 13 year old boy with no rhythm in the drumming lesson could destroy the most universally liked track of all time. And no, the boy wasn’t me, as drumming is only musical ability I seem to posses.

Queens of the Stone Age – The Blood is Love
Not really sure of this song… it is from the album that I played to death for months on end but don’t really have an opinion on other than it is all right. I don’t rate the Queens of the Stoneage that highly seeing as it really is just a solo project for Josh Homme. I do have to admit that he has a way with melodic rock, and this album and song do have a nice bit of melody about them… especially Burn the Witch.

Bonus Seventh Spin:
Belle & Sebastian – To Be My Self Completely

Review - We Are The Physics - We Are the Physics Are OK At Music.

Something that sounds genuinely new and interesting should be celebrated with a large fanfare and a parade down the local high street – for We Are the Physics are here. The thing is that while these guys sound different and sound unique you realise after a couple of listens that they are not doing anything completely different, but are just taking bits from loads of bands, throwing them into a big pile and running through it, diving into and all the while shouting loudly.

They sound like mix of Franz Ferdinand, Les Savvy Fav, The Hives and Belle and Sebastian. No, wait, let me explain; the band have taken the shouty vocals from Les Savvy Fav 9and a bit of the high fret board guitar work), the danceable rhythm from Franz and a smattering of tongue in cheek from The Hives. So where does Belle and Sebastian fit in?

Well, the key to WATPh is that while they are jumping about the stage, frantically drumming, shouting, barrelling lyrics off, they have a handle on some rather exciting melodies that will stay with you for most of the day. A great example of this is the bass line from “Bulimia Sisters”, the shouty chorus from “You Can Do Athletics BTW”, and rather frantic shout along “This Is Vanity”. The tunes are infecting and will burrow deep inside that mind of you – your foot is tapping and you smile is widening before you cans top your self.

There does seem to a bit a problem with the album though, and I might say it lies in the production. The amazing riff that is buried in deep in “Pylons + Other Modern Art” is lost – if the riff was as prominent as the “solo” 1.00 in then it might have lifted the song above the rest of the album. Elsewhere the scatter technique of the drumming lets the songs go of in insane tangents almost every 10 seconds which can berate after a couple of listens.

The sum of the album though is that this is a good collection of songs. Fans of the band will recognise a few from singles that the band have released – there are a few tracks new to this album that will not have heard, but the quality of those singles (which for months have been on the band’s Myspace) are good enough to warrant a purchase. A great album, though not for everyone, I can’t wait to see what the band can do with their second album.

Did I mention that three of the four are called Michael?

8/9

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