Arab Strap: The Last Romance

ARAB STRAP: THE LAST ROMANCE (2005)

1) Stink; 2) (If There's) No Hope For Us; 3) Chat In Amsterdam, Winter 2003; 4) Don't Ask Me To Dance; 5) Con­fessions Of A Big Brother; 6) Come Round And Love Me; 7) Speed-Date; 8) Dream Sequence; 9) Fine Tuning; 10) There Is No Ending; 11*) El Paso Song; 12*) Go Back To The Sea.

Arab Strap may not have been the best band in the world, or even the best band in Scotland, but the general outlook of their output is bizarre enough to guarantee them a free ride on the musical history train all by itself. For instance, how does one really explain the fact that it took them ten years of essentially re-writing the same old dirge in order to get around to an album significantly different from the rest — and then disband, as if that were their ultimate goal, and now that the goal has been achieved, we can all happily go home?

No drum machines — at all. Plenty of fast, driving tempos to break up the funeral procession style every time it threatens to annul the differences between songs. Aidan Moffat's occasional at­tempts to modulate his voice into a sonic flow that, with a bit of a stretch, could be called «sin­ging» (and generally on-key at that). Even some sort of moderately optimistic vibe, most clearly evident on the fanfare-driven album closer 'There Is No Ending'. And yet, at the same time, the original spirit of Arab Strap is fully preserved: any accusations of «falling in with the alt-rock crowd» would be completely ridiculous, because the trademarks — mantra-folk acoustic riffs, somber violin counter-melodies, dark lyrical topics revolving around alcohol intake and anima­listic copula­tion, etc. — are all there.

More importantly, after a few listens, the album does come across as the final stage of a journey through various stages of one's self-consciousness. As boring as it may be for some of the young 'uns, a thing called responsibility enters the picture: responsibility both from a musical point of view, as the album is made more generally accessible without sacrificing artistic integrity, and a general-artistic point of view as well. To put it simply, the point of The Last Romance is to show that Moffat and Middleton nowadays do give a fuck about what's going on, contrary to all those early years when they not only didn't, but considered it cool to let all their fans love them exactly for the fact that they didn't.

Hence, 'Confessions Of A Big Brother', which, in a way, may be the duo's masterpiece: a cleanly, near-gorgeously recorded acoustic ballad, with Moffat's lines occasionally echoed by a «baroque» cello part — beginning with the line "I used to be so proud of thinking I was such a liar", but en­ding with the realization that "I don't want to spoil your fun, but you don't have to hurt someone". And somehow it makes you feel that, perhaps, from time to time, there does arise a need to spurt out a morally positive truism instead of a morally neutral, or shock-value morally negative, geni­us-quality innovative string of words.

'Dream Sequence', despite the need to incorporate some obligatory dirty imagery (even pure ro­mantic love for these guys is undetachable from golden showers), is essentially a sentimental ly­rical anthem, whose main piano melody line is stately rather than sad, uplifting rather than de­pressing. On 'Fine Tuning', another pleasant acoustic ballad, Moffat openly admits that "You're useless at drinking, but these days I've been thinking I doubt we're going to need it" — abstinence detected! And then, as the guitars, organs, and mighty brass of 'There Is No Ending' weave out a near-symphonic melody, each few bars of which descend into a satisfyingly conclusive mood, what we hear is: "Not everything must end, not every romance must descend, not every lover's pact decays, not every sad mistake replays". Now that's even more optimistic than what the late George Harrison used to tell us about all the things that must pass, and the late George Harrison, in the long run, was a fairly optimistic kind of fellow.

Whether it is Arab Strap's friendship with Mogwai (whose keyboard player Barry Burns actually guests on the album), or just the basic process of growing up that is responsible for this change of attitude is nowhere near as important as the fact that The Last Romance does work terribly well as a swan song, and that even some of the band's most unbearable albums, conceptually, gain from its existence — with this last thread, they are all joined together in one meaningful whole. But do not take this as an advice to begin your acquaintance with these guys with this record: no matter how accessible it is, it really only makes sense within the overall context. In order to like The Last Romance, I had first to hate The Red Thread.

Of course, if you happen to like The Red Thread, you will have to wait your turn to grow up to like The Last Romance — otherwise, it will be too sissy-pissy for your hipster tastes. But as for me, I happily award a thumbs up both to the record, and, with it, to the entire career of these two awful Scots. And, for the record, since their parting ways, both have had solo careers, of which Malcolm Middleton's seems not only to have been the more productive, but also the more worthy in general: his solo albums pick up quite well from the «freshly grown-up» stage of The Last Ro­mance and proceed from there — highly recommended, although I have no idea if these here reviews will ever get around to them.

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Arab Strap: Monday At The Hug & Pint

ARAB STRAP: MONDAY AT THE HUG & PINT (2003)

1) The Shy Retirer; 2) Meanwhile, At The Bar, A Drunkard Muses; 3) Fucking Little Bastards; 4) Peep-Peep; 5) Flirt; 6) Who Named The Days; 7) Loch Leven Intro; 8) Loch Leven; 9) Glue; 10) Act Of War; 11) Serenade; 12) The We­ek Never Starts Around Here; 13) Pica Luna.

If there is one album from Arab Strap that I could see myself willingly returning to in the future, it is Mad For Sadness. If there is one album from Arab Strap that I could see myself unwillingly returning to in the future — for instance, being held at gunpoint by one of the band's homicidal fans — it will be Monday At The Hug & Pint. Not because I could ever see it as a potential masterpiece; it just sort of sets the wheels in motion where most of their other records clog them into eternal peace.

A couple years off and a couple side solo projects later, as the static duo comes back together, there is a slight change in style and attitude that makes the next batch of results easier to bear and a bit more captivating. Nothing revolutionary, of course, but it is a bit ironic that the album title, so perfectly suitable to describe all of their early years, feels a bit obsolete when it is wrapping up their new material. Because there is a very vague sense of growing up here, of moving beyond the primitive barstool philosophy and the monotonous musical exploration of one single emotional state. Not «diversity» as such, you understand, but a bit of branching out.

Almost everybody's favourite from the record is 'The Shy Retirer', and I agree: it is as perfect an opener for an Arab Strap record as could ever be hoped for, setting a light, modestly active, and very musical tone for the entire record. The pseudo-techno dance rhythm is not the main point (in the past, Arab Strap had many times proved that they could be dead boring at any chosen tempo); the main point is the handsome chamber pop arrangement, with guitar and strings locked onto each other in an almost soaring (for Arab Strap's standards, that is) embrace — and it does not hurt that the lyrics, for once, drop all the shock value and simply concentrate on the feelings — and there is, what, optimism in the air?

No, it is not as if Moffat and Middleton, all of a sudden, decided to let go of the darkness: it rears its wings already on the third track, blatantly called 'Fucking Little Bastards' and jarring the en­vironment with distortion, feedback, and fragile violins lost in a white noise tsunami. But there is more balance between dark and light here than ever before, and that may indicate that they are finally on their way to renounce caveman teenage excess in favour of something more reaso­nable... for instance, a tacit recognition of the fact that life as such is not reducible to side effects of one's ingrained booze and sex program?

It is for these little rays of light that some hardcore fans anathemized the album and ran back to their old scratched copies of The Red Thread. In the process, they missed the obvious (to me, at least) fact that Moffat and Middleton have become more interested in writing music. 'Flirt', for instance, whose main acoustic riff + spooky slide overtones is a terrific combination. The gor­geous violin solo on 'Who Named The Days'. A sudden decision to embrace their Scottish legacy with the bagpipe intro to 'Loch Leven'. The oddly Dylan-esque flavour of 'The Week Never Starts Around Here'. There is plenty to enjoy on here in a sober mood — unfortunately, most people had already acquired a Pavlov reflex that associates the first note on an Arab Strap album with the uncorking of a bottle of brandy. Not that it's anybody's fault but Arab Strap's own, of course.

And not that Monday At The Hug & Pint is all that great an album, either: the second half in particular revolves almost entirely around slow-tempo tunes heavily dominated by pretty, but ve­ry similar violin patterns. 'Who Named The Days' seems particularly inspired to me, but the rest gets fairly lost against its superiority and, once again, eventually settles into background muzak. Still, it has its share of surprises, which is particularly surprising for such a totally surpriseless band as Arab Strap used to be; and the lyrics, for once, are well worth studying ("sex without love is a good ride worth trying, but love without sex is second only to dying" should probably make it into history books). Thumbs up. Honest.

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Arab Strap: The Red Thread

ARAB STRAP: THE RED THREAD (2001)

1) Amor Veneris; 2) Last Orders; 3) Scenery; 4) The Devil-Tips; 5) The Long Sea; 6) Love Detective; 7) Infrared; 8) Screaming In The Trees; 9) Haunt Me; 10) Turbulence.

It is always inspiring to find a juicy bit of somebody else's phrasing to pick and tear at the start of a critical review, and damn corporate ethics to hell. So this time I will unscrupulously pick on an old fellow reviewer, who once praised The Red Thread as follows: «...only those with working hearts will appreciate or understand this awesome mix of emotion, disenchantment, and melody».

Despite all the respect that said reviewer usually commands on my part, my guess here is that, perhaps, a working heart is a necessary but not sufficient condition to appreciate or understand this... whatever he said, anyway. At least, certainly not sufficient if you view The Red Thread in context rather than on its own. On its own, Arab Strap's usual unusualness may paralyze you the way it must have paralyzed latecomers in 2001; in context, it's just more of the same old same old from Scotland's famous propagators of the dazed and confused.

Except it's even worse than the already overrated Elephant Shoe. If you do not approach it as purely background muzak — and why should you? if you want background muzak, just throw on some Tangerine Dream — it is simply excruciatingly long. Each song, on the average, occupies around five or six minutes of sonic space so as to implant exactly one (1) musical idea (usually, not a very awesome one) in your brain.

'Screaming In The Trees', for instance, opens with a mo­derately complex guitar phrase à la Lou Reed that must have taken approximately as much time to write as it took to strum it out for the first time. That is, about seven seconds. After that, nothing else happens except for a few murky «lost-in-the-woods» keyboard whooshes and hushes... for six minutes. Hypnotic? Mesmerizing? Spellbinding? My goodness, and to think that in my innocent teenage days I used to think of 'The End' as «boring». Jim Morrison's ramblings, next to this exercise in bland minimalism, have all the strength of a titanic Wagner finale.

Perhaps if each and every song on here were cut in half (and the really long ones cropped by one third), I would be more sympathetic. Middleton's musical creativity is never stunning, but it is ra­rely altogether worthless. 'Turbulence', for the first couple of minutes, is convincingly moody — an odd splicing of a near-techno rhythm with dark, misanthropic bass and a quirky use of scratch instead of a real guitar melody. Any working heart could appreciate that. But for eight minutes? With nothing but another batch of speeding ghost keyboard overdubs for extra entertainment? Do they really think that only that sort of length makes the whole thing artistic? Is it supposed to help those who long to prolong a special sort of trance? If it is supposed to be trance-inducing, why do they bother to come up with lyrics in the first place?..

Speaking of lyrics, as usual, Moffat comes up with another ingenious bunch of drink-fueled ima­gery, but, just like the music, the words, too, are getting old. The poet cuts down a bit on crude­ness and sheer shock value, which is laudable, but this does not mean that the Holy Duality of Booze and Sex is in danger of being replaced by any other central themes. 'Love Detective' is the one people quote the most, only because it sort of tells an almost explicit story about rummaging through your loved one's diaries and learning about her secret affairs. But, uh, so what? The song itself is as mind-numbing as everything else on here.

In short, The Red Thread is simply the epitome of everything that can go wrong with a mood-oriented album even when it's run by a couple of not-untalented musicians. As much as I am dis­gusted by Arab Strap's general philosophy, I concede that it can be done skilfully, and has been done by them skilfully both before and after this record. This, however, I cannot even accept as background music; with each and every good idea on the record degenerating into crap less than midway through, it's easily the firmest thumbs down I could ever show these guys.

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Arab Strap: Elephant Shoe

ARAB STRAP: ELEPHANT SHOE (1999)

1) Cherubs; 2) One Four Seven One; 3) Pyjamas; 4) Autumnal; 5) Leave The Day Free; 6) Direction Of Strong Man; 7) Tanned; 8) Aries The Ram; 9) The Drinking Eye; 10) Pro-(Your) Life; 11) Hello Daylight.

This is where the formula starts to get seriously annoying; not coincidentally, Elephant Shoe is occasionally hailed as Arab Strap's masterpiece, because one man's serious inflammation of all points of annoyance is another man's acute stimulation of all points of exuberance. People from all sorts of circles were more than happy to rave about the record simply because, from an ideo­logical point, it was such an attractive hipster's paradise.

In other words, if your standard model of behaviour involves permanently getting sloshed at the local pub (nightclub / bar / gay bar / subway station, depending on areal circumstances), coming home no earlier than 4 a.m., conducting all other-sex relationships from a purely physiological point of view (fuck love anyway, since love demands kindness and to be kind is uncool), and li­miting your human functions to poorly articulated blabber that tries to mold together some sort of «soul» out of sheer animal instinct — then Elephant Shoe is the next chapter in your personal Bible. Different from the previous one only in that there is just a wee bit less brutal sexual image­ry and just a wee bit more vague thoughts about the future (e. g. 'Autumnal', on which Moffat's /anti-/hero even considers having children — "we've already named the seeds I'll be sowing" — but then again no, what with 'Pro-(Your) Life' certifying that "the time's not right" and that "you just have to accept mistakes happen". Which is all too well: I shudder to think of the poor fate that would befall the anti-hero's children... not that it ain't happening in real life all too often).

I cannot state that this attitude is not conveyed well enough. It must be, since it has captivated so many people who can relate to it, or, rather, who wish they could relate to it. But it is not convey­ed well enough to convert me the way, for instance, a 'My Sweet Lord' is able to awaken my in­ner churchgoer (sure he goes back to sleep right after the song is over, but while it's on, it's a doggone wonderful feeling all the same). And from this I assume that either I really, really, really passionately hate this attitude with a vengy-vengeance — or that Elephant Shoe's side effect of boredom is simply too overwhelming to help that other little guy come awake.

Because, back in the studio again, Moffat and Middleton are back to their old tricks. Five, six, seven-minute long songs basically run on one, at best two, looped musical ideas with not even a single atmospheric build-up in sight. And they aren't even beautiful musical ideas, like, for in­stance, the co­da to the Beatles' 'I Want You' whose chords puncture my depression centers all the time. They're... okay musical ideas. Ambient, dreamy, but not genius. Besides, I think that even the Beatles, had they suddenly come up with the bizarre idea of recording a whole LP of 'I Want You'-like songs, would not manage to sustain anybody's interest for one whole hour.

The best I can say about Elephant Shoe is it ain't too frustrating if you just take it as background accompaniment. Quiet, relaxing, inobtrusive sonic stuff that sets a good mood for killing some time while surfing on the Internet or playing Minesweeper or even working. And that's also what helps you to miss out on all of its stoned cultural philosophy — and consider all those Pitchfork and AMG reviews as manifestations of pretentious idiocy — and, eventually, contribute towards building a bright new world for all tomorrow's children. Delighted to give this a thumbs down.

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Arab Strap: Mad For Sadness

ARAB STRAP: MAD FOR SADNESS (1999)

1) Intro/My Favourite Muse; 2) Packs Of Three; 3) New Birds; 4) Toy Fights; 5) Here We Go; 6) Phone Me Tomor­row; 7) Girls Of Summer; 8) Piglet; 9) Blood; 10) Afterwards.

«Arab Strap Live» is somewhat of an oxymoron; having made a point of always sounding dead in the studio, it is a priori unclear what sort of nice change a transfer to the live setting could make. Nor does it seem like a good sign when you look upon the track listing — with six songs out of ten reprising freshly released material from Philophobia with more or less the same time length for each of the numbers (the actual show was recorded September 21st, 1998, at the Queen Eliza­beth Hall in London).

Confusingly, Mad For Sadness is Arab Strap's best album from the «formative» period. Which is not to say it is generally accessible or shows you any of the band's sides you are not already fa­miliar with. But if a magician were given a copy of Philophobia and told, «Do whatever is in your power to improve upon the convincing force and coolness factor of this stuff without ma­king it sound like somebody else», Mad For Sadness would be the eventual result, no doubt.

First, their live sound is recorded better than its studio equivalent. Maybe it's the added bonus of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, but somehow the instruments start reclaiming territory that, in the stu­dio, used to be dominated exclusively by Moffat's incessant grumbling. From the very start, check out Middleton's guitar work on 'My Favourite Muse'. The instrument plays, resonates, rings, echoes, generates mood and tension, whereas in the studio all that really got through was the god­damn bass. Sure, it's not a Jimmy Page-type landscape or even The Edge-style we're talking here, but not before taking a good sniff of this record would you believe that these guys have any sort of use for the guitar other than providing monotonous old tradition-grounded accompaniment.

Second, out of no other feeling, I believe, than pity for the audiences they vary the volume levels a bit. 'New Birds', as it turns out, had a jarring grunge-like section on the original release as well, but I didn't even remember this when the transition hit me rock-hard on Sadness — because they did hit it harder, and, again, where the original was mostly just deafening bass and power chords, here there is an extra psychedelic guitar melody played in the background (not sure how they manage two guitars, but a fellow named Gary Miller is credited as responsible for bass and David Gow for drums). All of a sudden... they rock! Oddly attractive.

This sudden embracing of dynamics reaches its peak with the eight-minute reworking of an old EP-only track, 'Girls Of Summer', which starts out as a morose stoner jam, but then suddenly gets transformed into a Cure-style dance-of-death thing, going from ringing echoey loops to grunge and back, then eventually picking up speed and metamorphosing into an almost techno style — and Moffat's «singing» lasts only for the first two minutes.

In addition, the setlist is about as strong as it could ever be (concentrating on stuff like 'Here We Go', whose lonely piano drip-drip-drips at the end are a classic Arab Strap-style hook), Adele Be­thel reprises her guest vocal spot on 'Afterwards', and the live drumming is a real heart-warmer after the intellectually annoying drum machines of the studio recordings (although even during the live show they occasionally turn on the tapes). All of this adds up to the first unequivocal thumbs up in this band's history — not a big big deal, but if they really have transcended generic indie values in this setting, and I think they have, a bigger one than most of us would think.

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