|
Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant | 
| Artist: Belle & Sebastian
Label: Matador Records
Category: Music
Buy New: $11.98
Rating:  113 reviews
Sales Rank: 28516
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 10429
UPC: 766481453123
EAN: 0744861042921
ASIN: B00004T8ZB
Release Date: June 6, 2000
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
| |
| Tracks:
| • | I Fought In A War | | • | The Model | | • | Beyond The Sunrise | | • | Waiting For The Moon To Rise | | • | Don't Leave The Light On, Baby | | • | The Wrong Girl | | • | The Chalet Lines | | • | Nice Day For A Sulk | | • | Woman's Realm | | • | Family Tree | | • | There's Too Much Love |
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com's Best of 2000
All the twee kids have a new hero--Belle & Sebastian front man Stuart Murdoch has replaced Morrissey in their pantheon of kindred spirits. But Murdoch is less Morrissey than Salinger, eschewing the former's moody, self-centered moroseness for the latter's wide-eyed, nostalgic innocence. And while it's easy to get lost in his witty literary narratives and precious brogue, you have to remember that Belle & Sebastian are a sum of their parts, each member contributing to Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant, letting Murdoch shy away from the limelight. That varied palette gives Fold Your Hands Child a wide-ranging expression and subtlety not found on earlier albums. --Tod Nelson
Amazon.com
Belle & Sebastian's songs have always been instantly familiar while simultaneously original and unexpected. Listening to Belle & Sebastian, you have the inexplicable feeling that you have heard these songs somewhere before, filed away with the mothballs of your youth, or that, maybe, you have stumbled upon long-lost tapes of a young Nick Drake being backed by Village Green Preservation Society-era Kinks under the production of some low-rent Phil Spector. The fact that Belle & Sebastian have arrived at their distinct, anachronistic sound quite naturally and by accident is a large part of their charm. It's not surprising, then, that Belle & Sebastian's fourth full-length record, Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant, has arrived with the band's sincerity intact. What is surprising, however, is the record itself: an eclectic mix of the soulful and the sublime, something of a departure for the band. Unlike their last record, the amazing Boy with the Arab Strap, the songs here are not instantly recognizable, but more subtle. The hooks don't automatically grab; instead, the songs' intent is to break you down, seeping into your bloodstream and working on you from the inside out like an infection. The eclectic feel of the record owes itself to the fact that this is, by far, Belle & Sebastian's most "record by committee" affair yet, with songwriting contributions from several different band members and songs that seem to have been built up from simple ideas into lush orchestral pieces with the musical input of the band's many different instrumentalists. While Stuart Murdoch still writes and sings the bulk of the material, he collaborates with bandmates on a number of songs, including the delicately soulful "Don't Leave the Light on Baby," written with keyboardist Chris Geddes. Unfortunately, songs by Belle & Sebastian cofounder and bassist Stuart David are not to be found on Fold Your Hands (he left the band during the recording). However, violinist Sarah Martin contributes her first song with the haunting "Waiting for the Moon to Rise," while cellist Isobel Campbell adds the record's most surprising track, "Beyond the Sunrise," sounding like a lost Leonard Cohen gem with its spare and fragile arrangement. Guitarist Stevie Jackson, who contributed some of the better songs on Arab Strap, manages only one on this outing, but it's one of the best: "The Wrong Girl," a tale of misplaced love juxtaposed against swinging Spector- like strings and horns. By the time the band reaches "Women's Realm," an infectious, life-affirming romp, the record's message, although never spelled out, is clear: Through all the melancholy and solitude and terrible things that could go wrong, life is still worth fighting for. --Paul Ducey
Album Description
'Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant', their 4th album on Matador Records, opts for a subtle, intimate palette that reveals its charms only in its own sweet time.
Album Details
Japanese Limited Edition in an LP-STYLE Slipcase.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 108 more reviews...
 Mixed bag, though the clunker to gem ratio is unfavorable March 3, 2008
Good Morning America
This album has some really great B&S songs, most notably: I Fought in a War, The Model, and The Chalet Lines. The rest are OK. There are a couple of stinkers, the stand out being Beyond the Sunrise, it's not awful, but the dude's voice in contrast to the rest of the album is just painful.
Nice Day for a Mood July 5, 2007
Thomas K. Emanuel (Deadwood, SD USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Now, everybody and their grandmother (well, assuming their grandmother listens to Belle & Sebastian) knows that this is pretty much Stuart Murdoch's band. On FOLD YOUR HANDS CHILD, YOU WALK LIKE A PEASANT (2000) he's in fine fey form as ever: "The Model," "Women's Realm", and "There's Too Much Love" strike me especially as minor classics in the B&S canon. However, apparently wishing to prove that Belle & Sebastian are a true band, and not just a vehicle for his brilliantly wistful vision, Murdoch pulls a Paul McCartney circa 1976 and opens the floor to his bandmates.
The results, if they aren't quite up to Murdoch's usual standards, aren't half as bad as the critics would have you believe. Stevie Jackson's "The Wrong Girl" is a nice uptempo (if not upbeat) number; the Isobel Campbell-sung "Family Tree", an airy, tongue-in-cheek "nonconformist" kind of song; and Sarah Martin's wispy "Waiting for the Moon to Rise", near-classic B&S. Which brings me to an interesting point: Belle & Sebastian isn't an especially powerful group. In order for a vocalist to get overwhelmed by their sound, they'd pretty much have to be trying. But both Martin and Campbell nearly manage it. That's not a knock - I love their tiffany little voices - but the fact remains that both girls sing with all the force of a fine lace curtain. And then "Don't Leave the Light on Baby", credited to the entire band and built on a ghostly electric piano line, is unlike anything I've heard yet from the band, and pretty much everybody gets out for a turn on the aforementioned "Women's Realm". However, not everything clicks: "Beyond the Sunrise", a Jackson/Campbell duet, falls rather flat, for instance.
In terms of sound, FOLD YOUR HANDS CHILD, YOU WALK LIKE A PEASANT is very much of a piece with Belle & Sebastian's contemporaneous EPs. This means that the record falls somewhere between the band's sleepier early work and the bolder sound of later efforts: they've gained some muscle and the arrangements are a little more ambitious, featuring lots more strings, but the power (on a relative scale, of course) of their post-2003 work isn't quite there yet. However, this is still an excellent record, and a nice showcase for the talent in the band that we may not have noticed in Stuart's shadow.
 critically underacclaimed October 10, 2006
D. Perry (Washington, DC)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This album is as close to perfection as any, particularly for a concept album. the low ratings accorded it by the major reviewers in completely inexplicable, and as of yet, the only accurate rendering of this work in print is The Onion AV Club's. google it.
true belle and sebastian lovers will love this album July 24, 2006
jugoslavija111
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Beautiful horn-work along with Murdoch's wonderous voice make this belle and sebastian album a masterpiece. Only iffy song is family tree in which the acoustic guitar just doesnt really work with the deep drowning voice. However overall, this alblum is absolutley belle and sebastian, or excellent.
Much better than it's been rated. April 28, 2006
Late-stage academic (Amherst, MA USA)
This album was seen as a huge disappointment by many fans, coming as it did after the band's classic, "The Boy With the Arab Strap." It was an effort to spread the writing credits around, and as a result it lacked the tight consistency of the band's best recordings. And it was hobbled by one or two true turkeys (the much-reviled "Before the Sunrise," for example). However, there are some spectacular songs here: "The Model," which is truly one of their best, "Women's Realm," or "The Wrong Girl," all classics. If you do buy it and load it on the 'pod, just delete and you'll end up with a solid number of really great tunes.
|
|
|
 
| |
