Push Barman To Open Old Wounds

If anything, this 25-song double set sees Belle & Sebastian at their finest.

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.

Push Barman truly captures the trajectory of the band’s seven-year career in about two hours, and it does so in a way that does the band justice.

As a document of the way Belle And Sebastian have grown up in public to the sturdy staple of indie pop they now represent on a global scale, 'Push Barman...' is an essential collection of work that simply cements their status as one of the most inspirational musical collectives to have embraced punk's D.I.Y ethic since the late 1970s.

It's a perfect way into the world of Belle and Sebastian, even if the band spends the second half of the disc trying to redecorate that space.

The quality level is almost inhumanly high, and the range of the tracks here gives you a better idea of what the band is like than any of their individual albums.

The results are less like a rarities collection and more like an unlikely greatest hits album.

In addition to simply being a package for the band's more obscure tracks, the album nicely spans its shift from folksy, melancholy introspectiveness to light summer-pop.

If you want to know about the Glasgow scene which spawned Franz Ferdinand, 'Push Barman To Open Old Wounds' is pretty much essential. [21 May 2005, p.66]

If you’re only going to buy one Belle & Sebastian album (and shame on you if you are), make it this one.

Perhaps the best overall representation of Belle and Sebastian’s distinctive brand of indie pop.

It's two discs of steady brilliance.

There aren't many dull points on this two-disc collection. [#16, p.93]

Push Barman To Open Old Wounds is a rare species indeed; though all of the songs could be considered “hits,” the album avoids all of the tackiness associated with greatest hits collections.

These EP tracks are just as good--and often times better--than many of their LPs. [#10, p.109]