Belle & Sebastian - There's Too Much Love
He can deny it all he wants here, but you know deep down that Stuart Murdoch really does want to dance all night like he’s a soul boy. Why else would Belle & Sebastian have taken a bit of a soulful turn on their fourth album, the lengthily titled Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant? Following the path laid by ‘Dirty Dream #2’ from previous album The Boy With the Arab Strap, on Fold Your Hands… they scatter beautiful string arrangements like confetti for the soul, nowhere more successfully than in the second half of the delectable Don’t Leave the Light on Baby, and throughout There’s Too Much Love.
Here, they go all Northern Soul, but not quite to the max: 80-90% maybe, which gives you the feeling of wanting to speed it up a beat at the start, but then when the strings introduce themselves it all changes as you start to appreciate the space, take the room on offer to breathe in their sumptuousness, and allow yourself to get lost in the outro. There’s also a bit of magic in the bassline, the way every second cycle it jumps a tone. I can’t explain why, but it’s just one of those moments that makes me go all weak every time I hear it.