Belle & Sebastian's path to glory has been one of the most ironic and heartening music stories of recent years. Routinely dismissed as wimpish indie underachievers, they're actually one of the most successful British bands of their generation.
While so many crass, careerist groups promise to break America and fail, Belle & Sebastian have pulled it off in a graceful, unshowy way; a triumph of theoretically uncommercial music being done so well that it actually becomes commercial.
Having achieved so much on their own terms, it's a surprise that 'Dear Catastrophe Waitress', B&S' sixth album, is accompanied by something of a media blitz. Stuart Murdoch, the elusive leader, is finally doing interviews. Photographs - with all seven members clearly visible! - are suddenly commonplace. And as every diligent reviewer notes, the album's producer is venerable pop auteur Trevor Horn, not previously renowned as a big fan of Glaswegian indie.
Horn's presence, truth be told, is a bit of a red herring. Far from being a companion piece to 'Welcome To The Pleasuredome', 'Dear Catastrophe Waitress' will sound reasonably familiar to B&S loyalists. These are sensitive, intricate and often very funny songs, which Horn has pointed up the baroque orchestrations and made Murdoch sing with greater confidence.
The bigger change is that Murdoch seems more in control of his band than at any time since their breakthrough album, 1996's 'If You're Feeling Sinister'. He sings lead on all but two songs, and is much more comfortable being a frontman than ever before. Only 'Lord Anthony', a song about a bullied schoolboy that he wrote before the band had even formed, fits the old twee stereotype. Elsewhere, his lyrics are elegant streams of consciousness, diary entries that - in the case of 'If You Find Yourself Caught In Love' - offer declarations of his Christian faith, comfort to the lovelorn and a humanitarian's attack on American warmongering.
As their fans know well, Belle & Sebastian have always been much more than frail indie kids. Nevertheless, the expansive playing and memorable tunes on 'Dear Catastrophe Waitress' are striking. On 'Step Into My Office, Baby' (the best song yet by Murdoch's lieutenant, Stevie Jackson), they concoct a pocket symphony in the vein of 'Good Vibrations'. On 'If She Wants Me', they're a silky soul band; the Isleys, perhaps.
For 'Wrapped Up In Books', they've adopted the Rickenbacker jangle of The Byrds. And on the astonishing finale, 'Stay Loose', they begin as Bowie circa 'Ashes To Ashes', before Murdoch and Jackson mutate into Difford and Tilbrook and keyboardist Chris Geddes becomes Steve Nieve. By the climax, they're even carving arcs in the air with two duelling guitars, an inspiring nod to 'Marquee Moon'.
It's a rich, bright, clever and engaging album that should trash those lame prejudices against Belle & Sebastian once and for all. And one which poses an unlikely, but enticing question: if they've made it this far without ever trying to be stars, what'll happen now they're making an effort?
