If You're Feeling Sinister

在Grunge统治另类音乐的那个年代，Belle & Sebastian的这张唱片掀起了一阵不小的震撼。音乐理念上的奇思妙想和精致优雅的旋律描绘了If You're Feeling Sinister的整体风貌，温文尔雅的睿智洞察力和错综复杂的编曲像是对the Smiths和Simon & Garfunkel的完美融合。Stuart Murdoch回归传统、充满活力的歌曲创作则决定了专辑的独特个性：顽童似的幽默，恶作剧似的乐句，不食人间烟火的迷人嗓音带来的是一种犬儒主义的玩世不恭。这张不到10天时间就录制完成的作品绝对堪称一张伟大的专辑，它就像一个屹立在英式摇滚根基上的三面体，构架它的分别是六十年代的民谣、八十年代的独立精神和九十年代的创作姿态，其精致玲珑足以让后来的任何一支独立乐队顶礼膜拜，即使是Belle & Sebastian自身的其他唱片也相形见绌。 If You're Feeling Sinister is the second album by Scottish pop group Belle & Sebastian, released on the independent label Jeepster Records in the United Kingdom and Matador Records in the United States. The album was released to much critical praise in 1996. Belle & Sebastian's second record, If You're Feeling Sinister, is, for all intents and purposes, really their first, since their debut in 1997 was not heard outside of privileged inner circles. And If You're Feeling Sinister really did have quite a bit of an impact upon its release in 1997, largely because during the first half of the '90s the whimsy and preciousness that had been an integral part of alternative music was suppressed by grunge. Whimsy and preciousness are an integral part of If You're Feeling Sinister, along with clever wit and gentle, intricate arrangements -- a wonderful blend of the Smiths and Simon & Garfunkel, to be reductive. Even if it's firmly within the college, bed-sit tradition, and is unabashedly retrogressive, that gives Sinister a special, timeless character that's enhanced by Stuart Murdoch's wonderful, lively songwriting. Blessed with an impish sense of humor, a sly turn of phrase, and an alluringly fey voice, he gives this record a real sense of backbone, in that its humor is far more biting than the music appears and the music is far more substantial that it initially seems. Sinister plays like a great forgotten album, couched in '80s indie, '90s attitude, and '60s folk-pop. It's beautifully out of time, and even if other Belle & Sebastian albums sound like it, this is where they achieved a sense of grace.