Belle And Sebastian - a band who've always existed on the fringe of mainstream success, skirting Top Of The Pops appearances but remaining firmly entrenched on indie radio station playlists and attracting a firm and surprisingly broad range of devoted followers, return with yet another line-up and an album which, upon a first, heart-deflatingly disappointing glance at the track list, appears to be as packed with whimsy as their previous efforts. Heart-deflatingly? Well, yes. After several years of charming, jangly pop - which, at first was warm, different, refreshing and post-modern enough to appeal to the most cerebral of music journos and the most ardently disaffected eyeliner-wearing youths - the novelty is starting to wear off a little. We're not sure that we're ready for yet another album of the same. Even Bis managed to evolve with the times, for heaven's sakes.

And so it is with lifted spirits that we can announce that The Life Pursuit is just different enough to mark it as a real success and very different from anything they've done before. Whilst remaining unequivocally A Belle And Sebatian Record, it's harder-edged and more exuberant - who can say whether or not the retro stylings of the guitar bands who've made it big in Britain have contributed to the band's new, almost glammed-up sound, but whatever the reasons are it underpins frontman Stuart Murdoch's lyrics superbly. Murdoch's words themselves here also reach a maturity, wit, elegance and power not seen since the band's subversive masterpiece of the late Nineties, The Boy With The Arab Strap - who else would be able to title a single Funny Little Frog and give it such a poignant message? Welcome back, Belle And Sebastian - this is a corker of an album.

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Released: 6th February 2006
Label: Rough Trade