WRITTEN ALMOST ENTIRELY BY FRONTMAN STUART MURDOCH, the sixth BELLE AND SEBASTIAN album is a magnificently assured and diverse pop record. With nods to influences as diverse as Cornelius, Manfred Mann, David Bowie, The Life Pursuit mingles the folky, be-sweatered pathos of their earliest work (“Dress Up In You”) with joyfully satirical late-’60s sunshine pop (“White Collar Boy,” “For The Price Of A Cup Of Tea”) and the sophisticated early ‘80s-influenced work reminescent of 2003’s Dear Catastrophe Waitress (“Sunshine).”