If You’re Feeling Sinister / If You're Feeling Sinister

Though it was the Scottish popsters' second album, 1996's If You're Feeling Sinister was the first Belle and Sebastian record most Americans heard, due to its predecessor's initial import-only status. As such, it made an ideal introduction to frontman Stuart Murdoch's fragile-but-hook-filled folk-pop tunes. The influence of '60s chamber-pop is prevalent, but so is that of British folk-rock (especially Nick Drake and Al Stewart), though one of Murdoch's main acknowledged inspirations was pastoral '80s U.K. indie-pop band Felt. Over a quiet (but often sprightly) bed of predominantly acoustic instruments, Murdoch unspools a steady stream of intimate imagery detailing characters isolated from their environment and caught up in their own heads. On subsequent albums, the band's production would get bigger and bolder, with broader hints of rock, pop, and even soul, but from the roll call of quirky characters on the title track to the romantic confusion of "Seeing Other People," Murdoch's pop sensibilities keep things accessible here no matter how murky the psychological waters become.