Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant [CD]

Pet Sounds clones are a dime a dozen. Every month someone, somewhere, claims unearned kudos for the latest indie fad by comparing it with the Beach Boys' 1966 masterwork. In the case of Fold Your Hands Child, however, there really is no other precedent. On the evidence of their 3 earlier efforts, Belle & Sebastian seem incapable of writing a bad tune, but here they've transcended even those illustrious early works: 11 perfectly cut pop gems, as graceful and exacting as Brian Wilson used to produce.

Comparisons will inevitably be made with the album's predecessor, The Boy With the Arab Strap. One of those songs in particular points to the new direction, 'Dirty Dream Number 2', the exquisite soul pastiche. Sarah Martin's violin works similar wonders here on 'The Model', 'Don't Leave the Light On Baby', 'Women's Realm' and 'There's Too Much Love', the sweetest string sounds imaginable, soaring and diving, wringing every nuance of heartbreak from the accompanying lyric. The same soulful vivacity infuses the rest of the album - call it, then, 'Dirty Dream Numbers 3 to 13'.

'I Fought In a War' begins like an ancient folk hymn, then carries its elegiac tone into a contemporary pop setting. The harpsichord, another new feature, seems custom-built for the B&S musical blueprint. It adds extra fervour to 'Waiting for the Moon to Rise' and propels 'The Model', the latter a classic Stuart Murdoch tale of emotional confusion, using painting as a metaphor for a dysfunctional relationship. In stark contrast is the concentrated, hesitant 'Beyond the Sunrise', which demonstrates how impeccably arranged the sound has become. Harking back to the Lee Hazlewood-Nancy Sinatra duets of the sixties, it features male and female vocal parts, choir-like backing, startlingly audible fretwork (you can hear the fingers working), church bells, and backwards guitar - all of it used sparingly, for embellishment. Understatement is the keyword in the Belle & Sebastian glossary.

It's a relief to know that someone has finally got around to following up the Smiths' 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now'. The song, 'Nice Day for a Sulk', hitches a jaunty, lilting rhythm to an ethereal and uplifting vocal melody. Even the soul turn itself takes a new turn, on 'Don't Leave the Light On Baby'. The singer slips between cautious regret and bitter resignation, over a haunting and soulful keyboards-and-strings refrain (if you're feeling sinister). More pointed is 'The Chalet Lines', a first-person retelling of a girl's rape, sung by Murdoch. Yet this apparently straightforward and spartan lament contains its own subtleties. Even as the sharp colloquialisms make the incident seem more harrowing, the sense of helplessness and despair cannot extinguish a spark of defiance.

The next single, 'The Wrong Girl', telegraphs the essence of the B&S sound: a melody that you've heard a hundred times before, sounding like you're hearing it for the first time, every time. And then before it's barely begun, you're ensnared in that strange, magical, unfathomable mood they seem to conjure up at will. Such pristine pop purity is rarely achieved on a single, let alone a whole album.

Can a better one possibly come out this year?

The only bad words I can say about this record are "Nice day for a sulk", but I suppose they needed something light and easy-going after the tragic, harrowing "Chalet lines". "I fought in a war" is my favourite B&S track ever, I only wish they had written it earlier. It begins with simple vocals over a barely-heard accousic guitar, then builds via a gorgeous guitar line to a sublime, trumpet lead instrumental. The jazzy, "There's too much love" is brilliant as well, "Beyond the sunrise" and "Don't leave the light on baby" are less accessible but very good all the same. I can't say whether it's better or worse than their last album, because they're very much different records. This is just a peach of an album.

The sleeve notes to this album highlight the youthful ideals of Glasgow hipsters being put to the test "when they come up against the commercial world and the awakening activity of everyday life". The conflict between ideals and reality, a recurrent theme in earlier Belle and Sebastian releases, is central to "Fold your hands child, you walk like a peasant." In 'Women's Realm', an artfully arranged Murdoch and Campbell duet, Murdoch sings "It would take a left wing Robin Hood to pay for school/Your Dad's a boozer and you keep him alive." The legendary figure is given a political label and put in a context of modern day poverty and alcoholism far from the romance of Nottingham Forest. And of course, no such hero really exists. In 'Beyond The Sunrise', a slow-paced and almost Biblical Jackson and Campbell duet, the character Joseph's dreams are broken, and he dismisses an invitation to taste hope in a temptress's skin and "faith with the dawn" as a liquor-induced dream. The song, on the first few listens, sounds out of place, gruff and laborious, and it takes several listens to appreciate its originality and effectiveness at evoking a hazy, archaic atmosphere. The singer in 'Don't Leave The Light On Baby' is stuck in a failing relationship, resigned to bloody stupid days and conceding that it's "best to go down without a fight" He is overawed when a friend comes back from abroad rich. Such opportunities do not seem to be open to him. And yet he can find simple pleasure in watching a sunset. Most poignantly, Murdoch's character in the opening track 'I Fought In A War' thinks of a love back home while he has to endure "a corpse that just fell into me, with the bullets flying round". He imagines her "making shells back home for a steady man to wear/Round his neck", a devastating image - while seashells may make a pretty necklace, the song's context makes it impossible to avoid the sense of "shells" as explosive shells, and a feeling that his contemplation of his lover with another man is as destructive for the narrator as the battle he is in the middle of. 'The Chalet Lines', following the pop brilliance of 'The Wrong Girl' (and even this uplifting song is about the singer not finding his darling except in the back of his mind, and indeed having the wrong dream on his mind), is stark and disturbing. With minimal musical accompaniment, Murdoch sings from the point of view of a rape victim. The fact that lines such as "I missed my time, I don't think I could stand/To take the test" are sung by a man, even a man with such a gentle voice, makes them all the more terrifying. Whether or not he succeeds in expressing the thoughts of a rape victim can only be known by those who have suffered that atrocity, but the is as sensitive and understatedly tragic as anything Belle and Sebastian have done before: "Her face was just a smear on the pane". Much of the album is melancholic in tone, especially the whimsical 'Waiting For The Moon To Rise', Sarah Martin's first song for the band. However, there is also a tone of suppressed aggression. Murdoch proclaims himself a fraud in 'The Model' and positively wants to cause offence in the absolutely outstanding closing track, 'There's Too Much Love'. He imagines coming to blows and ending face down on the ground. It also takes a lot of boldness to begin a song "I don't care whether you hear this", as he does 'Women's Realm'. However, he also insists on his honesty in expressing his emotions, and the album's closing lines "I'm brutal, honest and afraid of you" conclude it magnificently. The upbeat orchestrial finale detracts from the direct confessional nature of 'There's Too Much Love', and indeed the whole album.

It's not perfect. 'Nice Day For A Sulk' is too slight, and the lyrics to 'Family Tree' too sixth-form, but these are still perfectly listenable. In general, the songs are varied, yet unified, and incredibly addictive. Musically and lyrically, Belle and Sebastian are the most accomplished band around.