Belle And Sebastian
If You're Feeling Sinister

THE REVIEW

I've always been quite tough with music. Never has an album made me happy, and musically speaking, nothing has ever brought a smile to my face. Only one record, in particular, still manages to lift my spirits, ''If You're Feeling Sinister'', a true jewel of Pop music released in the latter half of the nineties.

Have you ever imagined your life as if it were a movie? Well, I like to think of it like that. It's a bit like the soundtrack of my days, but that's okay. It's a sweet album, cheerful and sensitive yet at the same time a bit melancholic and sad, so it accompanies me in all my moods. Perhaps that is why I am so attached to it; I listen to it on any occasion, and it always manages to be perfect.

Musically speaking, there's little to criticize; as always, Belle And Sebastian have perfectly crafted the arrangements without missing a beat. From the opening track ''The Stars Of Track And Field'', you notice how their sound is so spontaneous yet well crafted. ''Seeing Other People'' boasts perfect harmonization while ''Me And The Major'', ''Like Dylan In The Movies'', ''The Fox In The Snow'', ''Get Away From Here, I'm Dying", and the title track sweetly season the album. ''Mayfly'' is perhaps the best track of the entire album; even the trombone here seems to exude joy, accompanied by Murdoch's saccharine and melancholic singing. ''The Boy Done Wrong Again'' and ''Judy And The Dream Of Horses'' are instead the last two tracks, the saddest, but they perfectly close the album. It's a bit like a long journey that ends in an almost exhausted manner because that's how "If You're Feeling Sinister" ends, slowly and leaving the listener overwhelmed.