There is no God.

Sorry for all the emotion, but this really is the living end of tolerance. Okay, maybe it’s not that bad. Oh God, it really is. It truly is. Were we that bad? Sure, we had our little sonic detours and transgressions. You can forgive us for that easily, but how could any caring deity deliver us the mess that is “Dear Catastrophe Waitress.”

True, it’s never a crime for a band to attempt to reinvent itself. In fact, many cases do so, and rightly. Belle and Sebastian’s last project, writing incidental music for Todd Solondz’s predictably controversial film “Storytelling” seemed like sketches of pieces to come. Their previous album “Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant” had its ups and downs and even glinted with refreshing bites of cheese (“Beyond the Sunrise”) from an extinct era. The album launched the band as a less traditional rock ensemble wherein different band members could switch roles and instruments when appropriate (and sometimes when not). It seemed like a steppingstone. Perhaps since this last experiment, they have lost the ability to criticize each other and simply greenlight every half-cocked new idea rushed forward.

Flashback to 1996, Belle and Sebastian came seemingly out of nowhere and made what is considered (by me and many critics alike) one of the greatest albums ever made. The album was at once so precious and so deliciously naughty that they had to call it “If You’re Feeling Sinister.” It was a triumph of the heart and soul. Stuart Murdoch sang like an angelic reincarnation of Nick Drake (whom he’d never heard before), while spouting lyrics so bittersweet that they evoked “Queen is Dead”-era Morrissey.

The music, on the other hand, whisked through all four seasons