Belle and Sebastian – Late Developers review

After all these years since appearing in the mid nineties with Tigermilk, given what we now know one of the things you could never accuse Belle and Sebastian of is using cynical marketing gimmicks. In addition, another thing seldom held against them might be the notion of being profligate with their legacy. But then, here comes Late Developers, the Glaswegian band’s second album inside nine months following last year’s A Bit of Previous. Strangely, it was accompanied by a PR embargo that resticted public knowledge until only days prior to release – and there’s even sort of novelty artwork. Will the real Belle and Sebastian please stand up?

Not all the answers to the so many questions are immediately obvious, but nobody rightly cares about PR embargos and this is after all a group who’ve earned the right to be mysterious if they really want to be. The plainer facts about Late Developers are of a record full of material written in the lockdown-ish/home recording sessions from which it’s predecessor was made up of, but that doesn’t entirely square things away – this is no secondary project full of less interesting work, which (maybe) explains why they didn’t give enough time for that kind of wrong impression to be taken.

Instead, this is a collection that not only traverses customary musical arcs – When The Cynics Stare Back From The Wall and opener Juliet Naked are respectively polished and raw, but familiar in their own ways – but spreads it’s wings, with the dry funk of When You’re Not With Me and especially I Don’t Know What You See In Me’s lush, contemporary pop landing Stuart Murdoch and co. in welcome new places. This refreshed sense of purpose could be just a marketing gimmick. But Belle and Sebastian have never needed those.

You can read a full review here.