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Push Barman To Open Old Wounds

by

Belle and Sebastian

 
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Push Barman To Open Old Wounds
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Avg: 4.0 (373 ratings)

Glaswegian twee icons look back fondly on their early days.

  • We Say...

    Review by René Spencer Saller

    A collection of seven EPs that Belle and Sebastian recorded between 1997 and 2001, Push Barman To Open Old Wounds proves that the Glaswegian twee icons did, in fact, dirty their fingers at the school of rock. Frontman Stuart Murdoch's tales of bookish, bicycle-riding misfits might be gospel to his corduroy-clad disciples, but the sweetness is cut with tart details: A cheerful slut contracts an icky infection, a child-bride swigs whiskey and gin, cripples get their crutches kicked out from under them, girls in homemade orthopedic shoes go blind. While Murdoch's fey warble bears more than a passing resemblance to Donovan's, you never heard the Scottish man-child unleash the vitriol quite like his acid-tongued countryman: Check out the way he rips into poseurs on the viciously refined "A Century of Fakers," the nonchalant f-bomb he drops at the end of "Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It," the scathing summer-of-loveisms in the '60s send-up "Legal Man."

    His bandmates balance the cute and the cutting with equal aplomb. Laced with swoony cello and delicate piano, their naive, impossibly pretty chamber-folk arrangements are darkened by oddball flourishes: the driving surf guitar and garage-grimed organ on "Le Pastie de la Bourgeoisie," the mariachi trumpet on "Dog on Wheels," the Vince Guaraldi-meets-the-Zombies groove of "Jonathan David," the blowsy horn section that drives "I Love My Car" out of the parlor and into the whorehouse. Like a dash of vinegar in the treacle, such sour spoonfuls make the sugar go down.

  • They Say...

    Review by Tim Sendra, All Music Guide

    Belle & Sebastian never felt tied down to the album as the ultimate expression of a band's worth. Put simply, they didn't feel the need to hold back their best songs for albums; the fourth song on a four-song EP was just as likely to be among their finest as any other. For proof check out Push Barman to Open New Wounds, a handy compilation of the group's EPs recorded between 1997 and 2001 for Jeepster and Matador. Beginning with "Dog on Wheels" all the way through, the band used its EPs as means of exploring new sounds and angles (check the groovy '60s spy song "Legal Man," the epic in length and scope "This Is Just a Modern Love Song," the bubbly sunshine pop of "I Love My Car," or the silly instrumental "Judy Is a Dick Slap") as well as an outlet for great songs that wouldn't fit on albums, like "Slow Graffiti," "A Century of Fakers," and "Lazy Line Painter Jane." Some of the tracks here would be pillars on a B&S greatest-hits compilation too; fantastic songs like "Dog on Wheels," "The State I Am In," "I'm Waking Up to Us," and "Put the Book Back on the Shelf." Push Barman to Open New Wounds is essential listening, the third disc you should get by the band behind If You're Feeling Sinister and Dear Catastrophe Waitress. Even if you already have all the EPs, you'll want to get this disc. It is reasonable priced, housed in the usual attractive package, and hearing all the songs back to back reinforces what an amazing group Belle & Sebastian were and are. [The disc also comes in a deluxe package, though all that means is that instead of a jewel case it comes in a hardcover book-style jacket.]

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