Belle & Sebastian – Write About Love

If the near-five year wait since The Life Pursuit and last year’s brilliant brace of albums from Camera Obscura and Butcher Boy led you to question Belle & Sebastian’s standing as indie-pop kings of Glasgow, wait until you hear Write About Love. While arguably not as consistent as either of those disciples’ most recent triumphs, there are parts of Belle & Seb’s eighth studio album as great as anything they’ve done before.

Fortunately, such moments are many: When The Light and lilting I Didn’t See It Coming is resurrected by the late arrival of starry synths and Stuart Murdoch pleading “make me dance, I want to surrender!”; when a fragile, metallic shimmer subtly emerges from Come On Sister, and ecstatic male backing vocals less subtly burst from it later; pretty much the entirety of Northern Soul stomper I Want The World To Stop, and the surreally hilarious I’m Not Living In The Real World, a coming-of-age caper inspired by early The Who and Beach Boys.

But perhaps the best of all is the final line of closer Sunday's Pretty Icons: a simple, undramatic remark of devastating kindness that’ll leave you choking over the glistening organ outro. A glorious return. [Ally Brown]