Album Review Belle and Sebastian - Late Developers

Kickstarting the new year with the news that they’d recorded a further album during the pandemic, ‘Late Developers’ comes just eight months after 2022’s ‘A Bit Of Previous’ landed Belle and Sebastian a Top Ten charter. Recorded during the same sessions as its predecessor, their fourth album in as many years represents a prolific purple patch for these legends of Scottish indie. Soft-bellied, jangly, and as cute as a litter of fresh-born kittens, ‘Late Developers’ is as wholesome and uplifting as even the most cursory consumer of ‘The Boy With the Arab Strap’ might come to expect. Alongside the trademark acoustic-strum moments like ‘When the Cynics Stare Back at the Wall’, ‘Late Developers’ largely brims with the energies of gospel, disco and soul. ‘Give a Little Time’, with its sugary stomp, and the surprisingly sublime ‘When You’re Not With Me’ offer some standout moments. And though the LP is not without its misses - the auto-tuned attempts of ‘I Don’t Know What You See In Me’ prompts something stronger than a cringe - there’s enough joy here for all the dreamers and believers that have flocked to Belle and Sebastian over the past three decades for their wistful crumbs of comfort.