The BBC Sessions

The album serves as an excellent chart of the band's evolution. [Holiday 2008, p.91]

Serious fans will covet the four excellent unreleased songs from a 2001 recording.

Diehards won't be getting rid of their copies of "If You're Feeling Sinister" or "The Boy With The Arab Strap" anytime soon, but often these alternate versions are tighter and zippier than the originals, which make them a good introduction for new fans as well as welcome contrasts for long-timers.

Endearing sour trumpet and recorder notes on uptempo tracks like 'Judy and Her Dream of Horses' and a stunning 1998 version of 'Slow Graffiti' capture the essence of early Belle & Sebastian, while the four unreleased songs from 2001 find the group experimenting with funky, spoke-sung vocals ('Shoot the Sexual Athlete') and haunting atmospherics ('Nothing in Silence').

Ramshackle, out of tune, fey and frail, not yet tightened by Trevor Horn, these tracks capture the essence of this band's particular genius. [Dec 2008, p.83]

Of course, the songs are amazing, but just as impressively, Stuart Murdoch's vocals are heartbreakingly sincere and soulful, and the band definitively belie their image as shamblers by sounding tight and together.

Performing live in the BBC studios affords the group the ability to stretch out and test the new song ideas that made these one-off recordings so sought after by the group’s most ardent sweater-clad fans. Regrettably, it’s not a comprehensive collection of their entire BBC recorded output.

This collection of live radio performances from the band's early years is like a letter from an old friend long delayed in the post.

The band rarely strays from the album versions of songs (sometimes to a frustrating degree; would it have killed B&S to record a version of 'Sleep The Clock Around' without the annoyingly long fade-in?), but such faithful rendering doesn’t make the material predictable; rather, it shows the band at the top of its delicate game.

These renditions, however, also stress how undeserved their reputation for tea-and-cakes twee was, using Stuart Murdoch's lyrical sharpness and the radio sessions' rough edges to draw blood. [Jan 2009, p.126]

Compilations of this sort can rarely stand as both, and The BBC Sessions, through innovative and intelligent sequencing as well as a dedication to the band’s history, stands well above its peers.

With or without the four unreleased songs, this was always going to be an essential collection for any Belle & Sebastian obsessive, and the credits are a reminder there’s plenty more to come.

Campbell's vocals sound breathless on the radio show, as she displays little vocal control, gasping for air between words and syllables. Despite that, it's still a worthy artifact.

Songwriter Stuart Murdoch often makes good on Morrissey's promise to deliver songs that live up to their titles.

The selection is so good, the set doubles as a best-of--it's a fine intro to the group's tuneful world of lovelorn geekdom.

The initial 1996 sessions emphasize the droll felicity of essential early songs 'The State I Am In' and 'The Stars of Track and Field,' tightening the comedic timing and ramping up the tension, making their adolescent trauma both funnier and scarier.

You might be surprised how much more there is to the band than 'Another Sunny Day' and 'Step Into My Office, Baby.' If you’ve been crossing the days off until the release, the last four tracks alone should justify investigation.

BBC Sessions will, if nothing else, serve as a satisfactory placeholder until the band reconvenes. [Year End 2008, p.84]

The BBC Sessions comes on the heels of "Push Barman to Open Old Wounds," which succeeded simply because it made neat work of the "Lazy Line Painter Jane EP Box," but BBC Sessions seems to somehow simultaneously offer more and less than that compilation.