The Gentle Waves: The Green Fields Of Foreverland

You can't fault the members of Scotland's Belle And Sebastian for not being prolific enough. In addition to the albums—two official releases since 1997, with another due later this year—and numerous EPs, everyone in the collective seems to head up some sort of side project. The second such release in as many months, after Stuart David's Looper album, The Gentle Waves' The Green Fields Of Foreverland finds cellist-singer Isobel Campbell timidly seizing the spotlight. Joined by Stevie Jackson, Stuart Murdoch, and others, the new band's debut won't convert those turned off by the twee impulses of Campbell's day job. Unobtrusive and almost comically delicate, Green Fields is chamber-pop; if you're not concentrating, you might forget it's on. Only "Evensong" and the fast-paced, slightly out-of-place "Weathershow" display much of a pop-song impulse, or even a pulse. But Campbell has a lovely, if thin, voice, and her lovely, if thin, music remains unobjectionably pleasant throughout. Still, when things come together, as they do on "Evensong" and "A Chapter In The Life Of Mathiew," Green Fields suggests a more substantial album that might have been. Maybe next month.