Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance

Eager to explore new ideas, band leader Stuart Murdoch channeled his passion for The Pet Shop Boys and Bronski Beat on Belle and Sebastian’s ninth album. Electro-disco occupies about half of Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance, from the bottom-heavy synth-pop of "The Party Line" to the Hi-NRG bounce of "Enter Sylvia Plath" (surely the first disco ode to the doomed poet). The other half? Cuts like the baroque-pop pearl "The Cat with the Cream" and the unassuming, acoustic strum-and-brush "Ever Had a Little Faith?" are solidly in the old-school B&S mode, and they blend surprisingly well with the more electronic excursions.