New album from Arab Strap: Here gravity becomes levitation

Everything has its time. Also in pop music. Some bands only accompany you in a certain phase of your life, but all the more intensely. And as with good friends, the paths can then part for an indefinite period of time in order to let the affection flare up again with its old intensity when they unexpectedly meet again after years. At least that's how you might feel when listening to Arab Strap's new album.

Everything has its time. The 1990s were a strange time in England. While Britpop between Manchester and London sometimes fell into reactionary waters, namely a regression into the tried and tested patterns of mainstream guitar rock, something extraordinary was happening in the far north of the United Kingdom. The stubborn Scots preferred to orientate themselves on the innovative spirit of the Velvet Underground, on the raw energy of the Stooges and other oddballs.

The actual new pop impulses came from Scotland. So The Delgados from Glasgow founded a label called Chemikal Underground to publish their own music, but also that of friendly bands in the local music scene. A truly astonishing pool of talent placed Glasgow as a true music capital on the cultural map of Britain.

Arab Strap: “Half-Told Tales” (Rock Action/Integral)

In addition to the post-rock magicians Mogwai with their extremist loud-quiet exercises, the extraordinary duo Arab Strap in particular made people sit up and take notice. Multi-instrumentalist Malcolm Middleton provided the architecture of the sound, which oscillated between melancholic guitar pads and electronic beats, while the bearded singer Aidan Moffat complemented the atmospheric music with his melancholic, often autobiographical and rainy lyrics with a half-sung, half-spoken delivery with a pronounced Scottish accent.

To Middleton's music, which never relied on tried-and-tested recipes, was always experimental but never strenuous, Moffat rapped in his sonorous chant, talked about heartbreak, drunken nights, missed opportunities and the little escapes from a difficult everyday life. Anyone who was there from the beginning would say: from the brilliant debut album “The Week Never Starts Round Here” (1996), stayed tuned, but after nine years and five increasingly less brilliant albums, Arab Strap ran out of steam in 2005. The duo broke up amicably to go their separate solo ways.

When the comeback album “As Days Get Dark” was released in 2021 after more than a decade and a half, many old fans had lost interest. A serious mistake, as “Half-Told Tales” now impressively proves, because Arab Strap have reached the peak of their abilities with album number 3 of the second phase of their work.

Just take the forward-pushing “You You You” with its beguiling Italodisco echoes, to which Moffat curses the tragedy of growing older as elegantly as it is perceptive. “Be a Man”, on the other hand, offers a wistful reflection on fatherhood in the age of toxic masculinity over effervescent beats and delicate piano sounds, as Moffat deals with the expectations placed on young males by the media and society as they grow up.

“Half-Told Tales” begins quite riotously with the opening “I Get Noise”, in which Middleton throws everything into the Arab-strap music machine mix: powerful, heavy guitar riffs, thunderous drums and a hectic panting saxophone create an acoustic storm into which Moffat reflects on the longing for escape points and comfortable retreats in a world full of screaming tumult.

A harmonious prelude to the whopping 13 pieces that follow. While Arab Strap's previous works were all around 45 minutes long, the gift that the band gave us and themselves for their 30th birthday comes with a full hour of playing time. On “Half-Told Tales,” melancholy is transformed into levitation through the magic of music, suffering turns into joy, resignation mutates into optimism: their ninth album in 30 years, Moffat explained, “is intended to be a kind of incantation to release the elusive spirits of hope and solidarity.” Arab Strap has completely succeeded in doing this on “Half-Told Tales”.