Pop/Rock - "I'd take bad sincerity over good irony any day," declares Stuart Murdoch of Scotland's prize neo-popsters Belle and Sebastian. Not just a great line, it's the fundamental attitude that propels God Help The Girl, an ambitious music/theatrical project that Murdoch has been working on for more than four years.

The germ of GHTG began when Murdoch found himself writing songs that he felt lived outside of the B+S playbook, songs that not only tapped into something of a "girl group" style they also served as the score to a tale inside his head. “All the time I was touring with Belle and Sebastian, I was putting aside songs for certain characters,” he says, “and at one point I realised, that it would make sense to string them together to form the backbone of a musical narrative.”

Utilizing the results of an on-line search for three female vocalists (as well as onetime and wonderful B+T guest Catherine Ireton - pic above), Murdoch fleshed out his idea of telling a story of a young woman - "Eve" - and her post-institution search for meaning and sanity with a "soundtrack" of songs heavily influenced from sunny 60's female pop and glossy Abba-influenced 70's radio hits. With a goal of turning the story into a modern filmed musical, God Help The Girl never lacks for big thinking and in an odd way the project's "delicate songs", as Murdcoch describes them, are in some ways a logical extension to the retro-pop sounds of fellow UK stars Duffy, Adele and Amy Winehouse. Recommended. Watch the video for "Come Monday Night" as well as the "Introducing" EPK after the jump...\

Myspace Artist Site

God Help The Girl - "Come Monday Night" video (from the album God Help The Girl)

God Help The Girl - "Making of" EPK