Be it the viability of 3rd parties in American politics, or the profundity of writers like Jack Kerouac and Nietzsche, I was wrong about a lot of things in college. It is only after descending from the purportedly ivory towers of higher education that I have truly realized things like the value of regular bathing, pants not made of denim, and sleep.

Sure, sure, the heady mix of barracks-style housing, and fresh-granted personal freedom clouds many young Americans' judgments. Only the lucky ones escape their undergraduate years without dabbling in creative facial hair or misappropriating student loans for that bitchin' pink flying v the dude down the hall is lookin to sell off. But not all judgements made during these troubled years are entirely off-base.

Case in point: During my tenure with the student run newspaper at my alma mater, a small private school in the Northeast that the lawyers tell me I should identify no further, I reviewed Belle & Sebastian's last studio album, 2003's Dear Catastrophe Waitress. I wrote at the time that "Dear Catastrophe Waitress shows B&S ready to embark on the great white whale hunt for a hit single. If this album is any indication, they have a great chance of succeeding. Unfortunately, if this album is any indication, it will come at the expense of the qualities that made them special in the first place."

And here we are in the brave new world of 2006. What has become of Belle & Sebastian? Their latest single, "Funny Little Frog" has charted higher in England than anything they've yet released, and their latest album has been released in the midst of media attention from previously unlikely sources.

"The Life Pursuit" is shaping up to be a success in all the businessy definitions of the term, but the real question is how does it sound? The answer: Like the Kinks. Or T-Rex. But unfortunately not like Belle & Sebastian.

It's a good record, I guess. A pleasant record to be sure. Stuart Murdoch's poison pen lyrics are still up to snuff, if that's any consolation. Only occasionly does his delicate voice sound truly oddly pumped up in front of the mix, like your most mild mannered friend going unexpectedly balls out at a karaoke bar. And, as he shows on "The Blues Are Still Blue," Stuart does an uncanny impersonation of mid-70s Ray Davies.

That song and the fuzzy glam-pop of "White Collar Boy" are highlights of the record, but it's hard to shake the feeling that I've heard it all before. And Tony Hoffer's production, which seems to involve getting the individual players to disappear as far inside the arrangements as possible, just magnifies what problems there are. When the songs aren't up to snuff, they can't just coast on the sound of an original band the way some lesser B & S tracks have in the past. Instead, things like the ill-informed white funk of "Song for Sunshine" crash and burn in a way the band didn't used to be capable of.

When "Dress Up In You" comes on halfway through the record with its mournful trumpet, brushed snare, and soft vocal, it sounds like an album cut off of The Boy With The Arab Strap. But in this company it's a breath of fresh air, and just about the only thing that doesn't sound like a dress up game involving the band and a closet full of seventies pop records.

Nicholas S. McGaw