Arab Strap continue their remarkable resurgence with yet another brilliant release. The Scottish duo release Half-Told Tales this week, their third new album in six years, following 2024’s I’m Totally Fine with It Don’t Give A F**k Anymore and 2021’s As Days Get Dark, which was their first album in 16 years.
As we’ve come to expect when Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton get together, Half-Told Tales is an eclectic trip into an irreverent, void-like hole of hyperreality with all minutae amplified, one that would be a somewhat suitably miserable proposition were Moffat’s delivery and lyrics not so wonderfully darkly comic, and Middleton’s compositions not such danceable, physically arresting exercises in pushing the envelope as far as possible. Straddling parody, pastiche and homage, the album unfolds across a sublime sequence of genuinley refreshing alt-rock.
Highlights are frequent and plentiful, and often there’s simply no telling where each of these detailed stories will go, both musically and lyrically. Immediately accessible moments have a propensity to become increasingly threatening, goading the listener on a journey they hadn’t anticipated, such as the gloriously climactic finale of You You You, or the big grooves of Glamour Magick, a dark, disturbing track that somehow also conjures the swagger of early 90s baggy while possessing the coldness and weariness of angular, post-millennium rock.
Gape and Mr. Splitfoot recall the group’s formative 90s slowcore-esque triumphs on 1998’s Philophobia, while both the sublime rage of Fighting For You and the dramatic Ampersand ratchet up the tension in different ways to reach emotional, anthemic echelons with a palpable feeling that seasoned listeners may once have thought was beneath this irreverent, distinctly oppositional band. Elsewhere, Basic Physics and Sunsong both employ an infectious, strident sense of rhythm, and while the songs, given their dense yet undeniably witty, often funny and relatable lyricism, are unlikely to become true crowd-wide singalongs, the combination of Moffat’s snapshots of everyday existence and Middleton’s creeping, epic compositions ensures they frequently hit with real emotional force.
The manner in which the more traditional indie-rock tracks sit alongside the more varied, risk-taking material is what maintains Half-Told Tales’ ability to surprise and startle. In an age creeping ever closer to a place where expectations have to be met, total comfort and accessibility are prerequisites, and everything needs to be neatly put in a box, or find a place in an easily digestible viral playlist or whatever, the unpredictability of these songs, lyrics and musical ideas is a welcome positive.
The fact that the group are now considered veterans, forebears even to today’s oversaturated landscape of sung-spoken indie rock, doesn't appear to have softened their impact. They remain as hardened as ever, angry, disappointed and let down by the world at large, yet despite those thick skins, a genuine sense of care, understanding and dare I say it, warmth, manages to permeate right through the very centre of Half-Told Tales.
Half-Told Tales is out now on vinyl & CD
The manner in which the more traditional indie-rock tracks sit alongside the more varied, risk-taking material is what maintains Half-Told Tales’ ability to surprise and startle. In an age creeping ever closer to a place where expectations have to be met, total comfort and accessibility are prerequisites, and everything needs to be neatly put in a box, or find a place in an easily digestible viral playlist or whatever, the unpredictability of these songs, lyrics and musical ideas is a welcome positive.
The fact that the group are now considered veterans, forebears even to today’s oversaturated landscape of sung-spoken indie rock, doesn't appear to have softened their impact. They remain as hardened as ever, angry, disappointed and let down by the world at large, yet despite those thick skins, a genuine sense of care, understanding and dare I say it, warmth, manages to permeate right through the very centre of Half-Told Tales.
Half-Told Tales is out now on vinyl & CD
