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The Vaselines - Sex With An X

Photo courtesy of Ellen Qbertplaya | @Qbertplaya

Poor Boy by Belle and Sebastian from the album How to Solve Our Human Problems - Directed by Oscar Sansom & Ciaran Lyons

Belle & Sebastian may not be everyone’s cup of tea. But for many, the band—originally formed in Glasgow, Scotland—is exactly that: a warm and milky comfort, best enjoyed alone while staring out a window somewhere large and lonely. The group has been putting out twee, folk-caressed pop since the mid-1990s. Their magnum opus, 1996’s If You’re Feeling Sinister (stream it here), rocketed them to fame with lyrical songs like “Seeing Other People” and “Get Me Away from Here, I’m Dying” (above). (The band will play the album in full this summer for the first time in North America.) Shortly after, a series of EPs—including Dog on Wheels and Lazy Line Painter Jane—and 1998’s The Boy with the Arab Strap (stream it here) kept them in indie pop’s graces. In recent years, Belle & Sebastian have shifted away from the simple melodies that made their name, incorporating disco and dance music on 2015’s Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance (stream it here). The band’s latest release, a series of three EPs titled How to Solve Our Human Problems (stream it here) (from 2017 and 2018), departs from their early work, too, adding new layers and levels to the largely linear sounds of years past. Keys and drum machines add lift and bounce, but Stuart Murdoch’s vocals ground it all—a familiar and harmonic ’60s-era lilt. The songs are bigger, modern and feel very much like the antidote they claim to be. The intimacy of Sinister may be gone, but Human Problems reminds us it’s good to think bigger than ourselves. Belle & Sebastian play Brooklyn Steel on Wednesday night. Brooklyn five-piece Barrie open the show. —Rachel Brody | @RachelCBrody

Photos courtesy of Mina K

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