Triumphantly fleeing old selves

Ruts are hell—suffocating, torturously self-reinforcing. A room without windows. That's why it's so inspiring to see people busting out of them. If any band was headed toward dangerous self-parody, it was Belle & Sebastian at the beginning of the '00s. It turned out all they needed was Trevor Horn to knock them out of their comfort zone.

I laughed out loud when this track came on the stereo the other day. The good kind of out loud. Enjoying its jaunty catchiness, I couldn't help but imagine how they would've done it years before—precious, maudlin, the usual accusations. Instead, it's almost Broadway in its garish orchestration, complete with cartoonish bwah bwah trumpet. They seem to be having a sly kind of fun all the way through and breathing a whole lot easier for it. Sorta like the album cover - people with portentous facial expressions now accompanied by other people with spaghetti on their heads. Bravo.

Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress