If you think the title of Arab Strap’s eighth studio album suggests apathy and existentialism in abundance, you’d be right. Those two ingredients have been the twin tenets of the Scottish band’s output over the years, after all, leading many to dismiss them as purveyors of dour miserabilism.
What the naysayers don’t get about Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton, however, is their undercurrent of dark humour and cynicism. The album’s title, for example, is actually taken from a humorous throwaway text – thumbs-up emojis and all – sent by their drummer. Yet it’s somehow an apt title for this collection, which is simmering with a “quiet anger”, as the frontman and lyricist described it, that takes in “conspiracy theories, online addiction and the forgotten souls of our seemingly connected planet”. Safe to say this is not the soundtrack to your summer barbecue parties.
The band’s 2021 comeback album, As Days Get Dark – their first in 16 years – poked and prodded at the mundanities of middle-age. Here, Moffat ramps up his campaign for a best-songwriter-of-his-generation award with his usual brutally candid (some would say misanthropic) yet often beautiful observations. His half-sung murmur is draped over Middleton’s musical canvas, which stretches from the squalid, confrontational rock of Allatonceness to the electro-disco shudder of Bliss and the industrial buzz of Strawberry Moon, which sounds like Depeche Mode meets Leonard Cohen.
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“You take all my time, you take all my strength, you steal my love / You are the worst friend I ever had,” he spits on Sociometer Blues, a vicious reminiscence of a relationship gone wrong. The atmospheric Dreg Queen recalls a former paramour – “He looked to me like he’d fallen straight from the folds of a dog-eared love letter” – while You’re Not There and Haven’t You Heard tread a more tender course, the former a heartbreaking keyboard-led tale of loss, the latter an encouragement boost for a loved one.
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This album, which balances fragility and desolation to perfection, proves that Arab Strap still have much to offer – whether their glass is half-full, half-empty or smashed to smithereens.
