With I’m Waking Up To Us, Belle & Sebastian are starting to make singles that actually act like singles. While still isolated from any LP, the latest release from the band now hinges around one expertly-crafted, meticulously produced masterpiece, and then follows it up with two throwaways that sound like what B-sides would sound like if these kids ever had any.

Flying out of the gate with an arresting melody, the single “I’m Waking Up To Us” maintains the consistent sound the band has cultivated over the last 6 years, mixing Arthur Lee’s band Love with Nick Drake’s melancholy. But it builds on itself for nearly four minutes, until the backup vocals, flutes and violins we’ve come to expect in a Belle & Sebastian song start licking over top of each other and gushing through a woodwind harmony. This musical foreplay backs up a devastating, savagely stinging lyric about the demise of a relationship. Typical for the band, the song’s words are as rancorous as their sound is angelic. “I’m Waking Up To Us” is the best song they’ve recorded since “This is Just a Modern Rock Song,” and among the five or ten best in their career.

But after that, the record heads downhill. “I Love My Car” is a joke, using swing-paced clarinets and slide trombones to direct a silly ditty as drenched in sarcasm as one would expect from frontman Stuart Murdoch. “Marx and Engels” goes down a little better, what with its comforting and pretty piano ballad serving as a lullaby for a band that’s getting a little too clever for its own good. Despite the steep drop in the second two tracks, I’m Waking Up To Us is still quite listenable and, based on the surprising strength of its title single, is well worth picking up.