The 1900s

When Belle & Sebastian passed through town recently, the opening slot went to the smug brats in the Smith Westerns. In a recent Trib interview, the local hypes responded, “Being from Chicago, who else are they going to ask?”

Well, one band springs to mind: the 1900s. The local AM-gold diggers would’ve made a more complementary foil to the twee Glaswegians than the barely postpubescent glamsters. Even a casual spin of the 1900s’ graceful new Return of the Century confirms as much, and even B&S agrees. The Scottish pop heavies drafted the band for a festival it’s curating in Minehead, England.

On its second full-length, the hometown act reasserts just what keeps it a staple of the summer street-fest circuit. The sextet’s stock in trade remains sun-bleached hooks and tender folk-rock harmonies bounced among the band’s three singers. But this time the instrumental accompaniment arrives relatively stripped down, accented by opaque lyrics indebted to the Incredible String Band’s Licorice McKechnie, the muse behind the peppy “Kidnap Runaway.”

Chief songwriter and singer-guitarist Edward Anderson’s high tenor lights up the disc, countered by Jeanine O’Toole’s cool coo. Her sensual ahs and ohs open the sleek “Overreactin’,” which finds the band in an altogether new mode over a muted bass stutter and elegant plucked violin— the closest this combo’s ever come to a soft-porn soundtrack. On “Babies,” over pulsing trap drums and tambourine, Anderson sings, “Every thing is all right?/?Everyone is on my side.” It’s not hard to imagine Belle & Sebastian junkies swaying when he belts out the line on the Somerset coast.

The 1900s play Empty Bottle Friday 3.

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