Album review: Belle and Sebastian stay on form with Late Developers
Belle and Sebastian, Late Developers.
★★★★☆
The post-lockdown album has been evolving. Initially, the pandemic produced a wave of introspective LPs that elevated navel-gazing to an art form. But the past year has seen the release of a wave of projects that celebrate the thrill of human connection and the simple miracle of everyday life.
That was the defining quality of A Bit Of Previous, Belle and Sebastian’s eleventh studio long-player from last summer. The record was a return to form by a group that had, across the previous decade, struggled to match the elusive, jittery magic of their early repertoire.
They now follow it up with a surprise sequel. Late Developers was recorded in the same time-frame of the summer of 2021, when normal life was slowly intruding on the ice-age of social distancing and Zoom videos.
As a post-dystopian commemoration of the return to normality, it is first-rate. The LP also marks a new chapter for Belle and Sebastian. Until recently they've been reluctant to reconnect with the DIY indie-disco aesthetic of their 1990s output. Fan-beloved documents such as Tigermilk and the Boy With the Arab Strap represented a chapter they were only too happy to close.
Here, though, they go straight fact to the motherlode, with a soundtrack forged largely from whimsy, underdog vim and quiet wonder.
“I don't know which way to be/I don't know if it's enough,” sings Stuart Murdoch on 'I Don’t Know What You See In Me'. As the lyrics spell-out, it's a plaintive single with wispy '80s synths (and a co-write with Peter Ferguson, aka Wuh Oh).
That song sets the tone for the rest of the record. The band veer from chiming and vulnerable (‘Juliet Naked’) to introspective and quietly wondering (‘When We Were Very Young’).
After the remarkable comeback of A Bit Of Previous, somehow Belle and Sebastian have bettered themselves once again. Late Developers takes the angst of lockdown and forges it into pure joy.
