- Record Label: Matador
- Release Date: Oct 12, 2010
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Oct 21, 2010Overall, Belle and Sebastian Write About Love plays like a greatest hits, though not necessarily of former songs.
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Oct 21, 2010Write About Love may not be a great leap forward for Belle and Sebastian, but it's such an enjoyable record it's difficult to hold it against them.
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Oct 21, 2010Somewhat removed from the robust radio friendly pop of their first Hoffer collaboration The Life Pursuit, this latest record inhabits a more delicate sonic framework, reminiscent of early B & S.
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Oct 21, 2010As the obviousness of Write About Love's title implies (it could have been called Play and Sing!), Belle & Sebastian are looking to get back to basics with their first album since 2005's tremendous The Life Pursuit.
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Oct 21, 2010Write About Love is a grower -- the sort of record you need to play repeatedly, listening to how it fits together, before it can really ingratiate itself.
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Oct 21, 2010The interchanging players fit beautifully into B&S's repertoire of unrequited pop anthems and introspective acoustic ballads.
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Oct 21, 2010Write About Love is a cracking pop album and a fine addition to a great band's already impressive catalogue.
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Oct 21, 2010Four years since its last offering, Belle & Sebastian pick up exactly where it left off - more or less - as a confident, pop-obsessed band that is just as interested in replicating the 1960s harmonies of the Zombies as it is in forwarding the cause of well-produced baroque rock.
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Oct 21, 2010Song for song, it's as strong as any of their records -- if anything, these 11 songs are the tightest they have ever been -- and Stuart Murdoch remains faithful to the aesthetic he essayed at the outset of his career, finding sustenance in the fine details, his obsessions carrying the weight of passion.
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Q MagazineOct 21, 2010Stuart Murdoch's lyrical muse is a touch subdued but Come On Sister's moreish synth-pop and the gleeful bubblegum, of Stevie Jackson's I'm Not Living In The Real World prove their sense of indie wonder remains undimmed. [Nov 2010, p.114]
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Oct 21, 2010It takes just under four minutes for Belle and Sebastian's eighth album to demand a place among the best of their career.
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Oct 21, 2010Belle & Sebastian aren't trying striving for new heights: They're just wounded introverts looking for healing, one wistful melody at a time.
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Oct 21, 2010The long break didn't stall the group's momentum, but Write About Love suggests Belle And Sebastian may have forgot a trick or two about, well, writing about love.
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Dec 21, 2010On Write About Love, he's in a more traditionally romantic mode, but nonetheless maintains his keen eye for the minutiae of relationships, while never denying the complexity of the attendant emotions.
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Oct 26, 2010Their eighth studio album is somewhere between an extension of their previous indie gems and another baby step towards radio-friendliness.
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Oct 21, 2010Write About Love may not be remembered as a seminal Belle & Sebastian long-player but its uncomplicated charms still make it an effective ephemeral pleasure.
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Oct 21, 2010Celebrity guest star wobbles aside, Write About Love is a well crafted, very listenable album, one that sees Belle and Sebastian ditch the qualities of their music that were starting to cloy without totally jettisoning the old charm.
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Oct 21, 2010It's good to see Belle and Sebastian back, but let's hope their next album sees a positive progression as opposed to more of the same.
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Oct 21, 2010Playful yet touching at (almost) every turn, Write About Love may not shake any musical foundations but it certainly proves that Belle and Sebastian still can't be pigeon-holed.
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Oct 21, 2010It's all there in those opening lines: Your familiar arms, I remember.
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Oct 21, 2010Write About Love also feels monumentally comfortable in its own skin. For a band that made its bones meticulously documenting awkwardness, that's a particularly impressive change.
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Oct 21, 2010Belle & Sebastian are in transition, as they were in the early 2000s, and I can only hope that we don't have to wait another four years for the likely superior follow-up.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 30 out of 34
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Mixed: 4 out of 34
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Negative: 0 out of 34
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Oct 17, 2010
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Oct 13, 2010
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Oct 13, 2010