The Life Pursuit (2006)

Stuart Murdoch is the type of songwriter whose scribbled couplets on tea-stained napkins contain a wit and pathos our own most labored efforts never do. He and his Scottish seven-piece Belle and Sebastian — now on their seventh album — have crafted a work more elastic and ebullient than their '90s releases. And though The Life Pursuit lacks some early favorites' gorgeous melancholy, jaunty anthems like ''Another Sunny Day'' and ''The Blues Are Still Blue'' make up the difference, danceably.