“How to listen to our new LP if you are an established fan. Have a drink. Understand it’s not Sinister, Tigermilk or Arab Strap. Understand we can’t take you back to those days and the way you felt then.” These words from Belle and Sebastian lead singer Stuart Murdoch’s Twitter read like a jaded warning from a man tired of being asked to play the hits at every show. Fortunately, Belle and Sebastian’s latest single ‘Talk To Me, Talk To Me’ sounds anything but tired, celebrating a new era of Belle and Sebastian music that doesn’t care for living in the past.
READ MORE: Album Review: Wet Leg (Self-Titled)
The track, released on the same day as the band’s album A Bit of Previous wastes no time getting into things; its opening chords sounding sparkly and confident above a quintessentially Belle and Sebastian groove.
Despite Murchoch’s tweeting, though, the band hasn’t strayed too far from the beaten path. For those after a taste of nostalgia, ‘Talk To Me, Talk To Me’ doesn’t make you look very far. The chorus’s layered vocals and the theatrical melody seem to hark back to the band’s Dear Catastrophe Waitress era, and frankly, I don’t think anyone else would even attempt a guitar solo accompanied by flutes in the way the ‘Talk To Me, Talk To Me’ does. Belle and Sebastian aren’t shy of their past, but they are not hiding behind it either; that, perhaps, is the secret to their long and happy career as a band.
Words by Martha Storey
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