God Help The Girl - God Help The Girl (Rough Trade)
4/5
By: Stephen Maughan
BUY DOWNLOADYour name is Stuart Murdoch. Your band throughout the years has grown and developed a devoted fanbase, which means you can pretty much do what you like and be sure it will be appreciated by those who follow your music. A few argue that your best songwriting days are behind you, back when you were a daydreamer kid writing songs about your beloved hipsters and beatniks, because well - nobody else wrote songs about them, but you don't let it get to you. One day ,while out for a run, you hear distant music play in your head. You hear swooning girl singers singing a sort of musical tale of loneliness and being misunderstood. It sounds beautiful to you. But this isn't Belle and Sebastian you're hearing, it's something different, with strings and a 60's motown feel. You then spend the next 5 years making a record that will do justice to what you heard in your head during that fateful run.
The story behind this fascinating release is enough to charm even the hardest critic. But what about the music itself? At first, you may not understand why Mr.Murdoch would take a few of the more interesting Belle and Sebastian songs, re-arranged and sang by a couple of, admittedly sweet sounding, girls along with some new songs. It's all moulded together to fit to tell the story about a mysterious and misunderstood girl, forever out of our reach. Still, as you listen to this record you can't help feeling an enormous sense of goodwill to what Murdoch was trying to achieve here, and God Help the Girl is full of nice touches, like having couple of the singers on the album who were winners of a online competition to sing on this album. Bringing in Neil Hannon and Murdoch himself to sing on the odd track also makes things more interesting than they would be if this was a more traditional Belle and Sebastian release. It's easy to get lost in the swooning soundscapes offered here, and to let the imaginary film roll in your mind as you let Murdoch's characters come to life.
Fans of Belle and Sebastian will find nothing too off putting here, and despite its attempts to be a "story set to music", it has that distinct Belle and Sebastian feel - perhaps unsurprisingly because the lyrics are typical Murdoch creations, and the likes of 'Perfection of a Hipster' or 'A Down and Dusky Blonde', will delight anyone who has been charmed by Belle and Sebastian. For everyone else, it's a good effort at producing something a little different, and bringing a little bit more glamour back into popular music.
Artists in this article: God Help The Girl
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment