God Help The Girl 'God Help The Girl'

So I obtained a promo of God Help The Girl, the new project from Belle & Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch. It is a story set to music, with a film to follow, sung by Stuart and several guest vocalists. Murdoch has been working on this for some time, as evidenced by the fact that two of the songs here originally appeared on Belle & Sebastian's excellent 'The Life Pursuit' sung by Murdoch, although they were penned with this project and another singer in mind.

The trouble with concept pieces like this is that it can be difficult to devote attention equally to enjoying the music and following the story. This was a slight problem on the Decemberists' superb 'The Hazards of Love' and is more of an issue here, largely because the three female vocalists have relatively similar voices. The story centres around the main character, Eve, who is voiced by Catherine Ireton, sings "there is no way I'm looking for a boyfriend" and then proceeds to fall in and out of love as the record progresses.

Musically, the sound is lush. Lots of piano and lots and lots of strings, it was recorded with a 45 piece orchestra. All sounds fantasic, yet somehow I found it deeply....annoying and at times it reminded me of an episode of 'How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?'. Much of it is fine, 'Pretty Eve In The Tub', sung by Murdoch over a plink-plonk piano is funny, sinister and then beautiful, 'Come Monday Night' is a torch song for those who feel overworked, underpaid and overstressed and is sung with much warmth by Ireton and 'I'll Have To Dance With Cassie' (which should really be the finale) is a joyous 'let's do the show right here' stomp.

But, what could be a great EP is fleshed out into an inconsistent and repetitive LP. There is a truly dismal karaoke re-working of B&S's 'Funny Little Frog, inconsequential instrumentals and fluff like 'I Just Want His Jeans'. One of the record's strongest aspects, the blend of Murdoch's and Ireton's voices, is underused with show-tune 'Hiding Neath My Umbrella' being the only real duet.

Its a shame, because this is a great concept, on paper it sounds great but on record doesn't quite cut it. The film on the other hand, may well be brilliant.

6.0

['God Help The Girl' is out in June on Rough Trade in UK and Matador in US. There is a pre-order deal with bonus tracks etc. check out www.godhelpthegirl.com ]