It's not been a year yet since A Bit of Previous, the last Belle & Sebastian album. It turns out that they recorded another record during the same sessions and it's out today via Matador Records.
I wish I could report that the record moved me the way Protest Songs did. That Prefab Sprout album, recorded simulataneously with Steve McQueen (Two Wheels Good for us Yanks) revealed a similar quality, though a different production than the first acclaimed parent record. In the case of Late Developers, there's a variety in production, sure, but the tunes have so far not grabbed me the way those on A Bit of Previous did. While "When We Were Very Young" and "Will I Tell You A Secret" feel like what we'd want (and expect) from a B&S album, lots more, like the grating single (written with an outsider) "I Don't Know What You See in Me" does not. However, the Sarah Martin-fronted "Give a Little Time" benefits from a robust production, and serves up a catchiness that's like a meatier version of something from side-band God Help the Girl. Sarah sings lead on "Do You Follow", another recommended cut here. Elsewhere, the languid and smart "When the Cynics Stare Back From the Wall" charms immensely in an old B&S fashion.
All that being said, Late Developers is a scattershot release, full of a handful of tracks that seem not even as interesting as lesser numbers from earlier in the B&S output. But it would be churlish to come at this album with quite the same expectations as a proper B&S release. It was recorded on the fly, more or less, so Late Developers feels like a lark, at least to the band involved, even if the quality is all over the place. And maybe that was the point. Maybe this is the Odds & Sods of the Belle & Sebastian catalog? Tonal shifts and silly production effects abound, yeah, but overall, for a band so famed for ornate arrangements, and a tidy and somewhat pristine presentation, those sorts of risky moves taken here are interesting at least. There are a number of tunes I'll likely not play much in the future, but the band's stretching here, and I can intellectually appreciate that at least. So Late Developers is a curious record, but even Stuart Murdoch is entitled to goof off once in a while, am I right?
Late Developers is out today on Matador Records.
[Photo: Matador Records]