Is there a better lyricist in Britain today than Aidan Moffat? The Arab Strap singer, dependably the most unflinching chronicler of domestic strife and claustrophobia, returns from his recent solo project; his other half, Malcolm Middleton, does the same. Both sound refreshed, though in Moffat's case, this may owe more to his local snug than a recording studio. But there is far more to Arab Strap than drink-fuelled dystopianism: Monday at the Hug & Pint sees the duo bring their mix of self-lacerating lyrics and Middleton's often beautiful music-making near to perfection. "I know I'm always moaning, but you jump-start my serotonin," Moffat slurs on The Shy Retirer. As ever, the picture he paints is pretty bleak, with occasional outbreaks of colour. Combined with his partner's evocative sonics, though, this amounts to some of the most original and powerful music currently being made.
Guardian
Arab Strap albums can be easy to parody: a couple of rambling Scots blokes picking through the spicy refuse of the soul while guitars spiral and beats patter in the background. You admire them from a distance for their willingness to peer into the pit. But Monday At the Hug & Pint clearly benefits from the time singer Aidan Moffat and instrumentalist Malcolm Middleton have spent on solo projects, not to mention the input of Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis from Bright Eyes, and a string section. It's their best record: the most concise, well-paced and most musical. There is still vitriol and degradation, particularly on the splenetic Fucking Little Bastards, but there is also humour, light and air, particularly in the lovely, soaring chorus of The Week Never Starts Round Here and Loch leven's exquisite folky strings. Arab Strap remain in the gutter, but at the very least they're looking at the reflection of the stars. [4/5]
MOJO
After well-received solo records, Scots miserabilists Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton reconvene for a sixth Strap album.
Generous as it may sound, it makes increasing sense to describe the Strap's Aidan Moffat as a latter-day Robert Burns. Sure, Moffat's ouevre is more melancholic, but where bawdy, aperçu-laden social realism is concerned, he and Burns are bards of a feather. here, primitive beat-boxes propel The Shy Retirer and Serenade, but with strings galore, bagpipes on Loch Leven, and pianist Bill Wells guesting, Monday At The Hug & Pint has a pronounced acoustic bent. Intriguingly - and despite his dearth of technique, endearingly - Moffat's usual spoken-word approach is now ceding to (shock, gasp!) proper melodies. Middleton's guitar arpeggios remain unique and evocative, and the temptation to enrich one's review with Moffat couplets is similarly enduring. Suffice to say Fucking Little Bastards finds him reading bird song as pernicious gossip about himself, while The Shy Retirer concerns a bar stool brooder whose Jekyll-Hyde wistfulness is vintage Strap. [4/5]
JAMES MCNAIR
Bang
Not a bad night. Just the usual really. Pub talk. Murder. Misery. Lust that's painful, loneliness that's impossible to get used to, regrets you can't shake, lurches in the heart. You should have heard Aidan. Spitting about "cuntsuckers" (we think the reviewer clearly got this one wrong as Aidan was in actual fact referring to a "cunted circus" - amusing that mishearing this could result in a phrase even more offensive than Aidan's original - CU) and "Fucking Little Bastards". Malcolm was there, though, making it all beautiful.
Fucking bagpipes came out at one point. And turntables and violins and disco beats and Codeine-slowness and pianos and whole Talk Talk-worthy oceans of gorgeousness. Aidan sang a song called Loch Leven and you should've seen his face. Dignity if it weren't for the running mascara. A 'Shy Retirer' he's calling himself now. He was dancing and he leaned over and said, "I'd love to fall in love tonight/You can be my teenage Jenny Agguter." He's a sweetheart. Can be a moody cunt though when he's not getting any. Aidan says it aint gonna be pretty. It's gonna be beautiful. And it aint gonna be honest. It's gonna be true. [4/5]
Playlouder.com
"Sex without love is a good ride worth trying / But love without sex is second only to dying" 'Glue'
It is not a statement uttered often, but it should be - Arab Strap were amongst the best, and the most influential outfits the nineties produced. 'The Weekend Never Starts Around Here' was a smart, ugly, and deeply funky little record, and 'Here We Go/Trippy' was an incredibly huge post-rock/disco mash up, and a thing yet to be beaten in sheer scope, size, and reach... but it was the follow up, the devastating 'Philophobia' that was Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton's masterpiece. That record was fucking colossal - the most brutally honest and moving account of human interaction since old Moz and his lads dropped 'Hand In Glove'. Stark, dark, violent, vicious and real, the record was too much for some to stomach, but for those that don't need life candy-coating, it was as welcome as a stripogram at a stag night.
And, as we said, it was influential. The current wave of new British emcees, who care more for detail and texture than straight rhyming and flow concerns, can be traced directly to Aidan's unapologetic vernacular. 'Has it Come To This' was essentially 'The First Big Weekend' with more cash.
But so what? Arab Strap fell off a long time ago. When they fucked off to Go Beat, so too went their spark, flair, dynamism, ideas, and enthusiasm, yes? Aidan seemed to be facing the same problem Eminem is now - his life already vomited on wax, what else to say? He's done the failed errection, the insane ex girlfriend, the Shitting of the Blood... and so followed a handful of dull, lifeless records, and a slump into irrelevance and the far reaches of most folks' memory. In the minds of most smart people, Arab Strap were finished.
But the smart people said something similar about Richard Nixon too, and Kylie, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, and Jesus Christ... smart people know little when it comes to true artists, and Arab Strap have always known this to be true.
Ho. Ho.
Oh, Arab Strap! So few men have managed to touch our scabrous hearts in such a way. Cohen, Bukowski, Barrymore, Hulk, Waterman... Middleton, Moffat.
Finally, our Disco Boys are back, back, back. Assume best Ja-Rule voice and HOLLAAAAH!
'The Shy Retirer' is the perfect re-introduction - over a beat that sounds like 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head' as produced by Jeff Wayne, dear Aidan tells a story of love, and of longing. "You can be my teenage Jenny Agutter swimming naked in a pond/you know I'm always moanin'/but you jump start my serotonin..."
And from then on in, it is all Mint. It is right and necessary that the gloriously titled 'Fucking Little Bastards' sounds like Black Sabbath covering The Smiths ("they've seen me in the shower with shite down my legs/they've seen me in a strangers house/searching for dregs"), and of course an Arab Strap song called 'Flirt' is wicked. And seasoned fans will be all excited about 'The Week Never Starts Around Here', and it is an exciting and weird thing indeed. It sounds like an Echo And The Bunnymen cover, or maybe prime Verve - perhaps not that surprising, given the fact that Malcolm used to wander around wearing their T-Shirts. It is a gorgeous little thing, mainly down to Aidan's game attempt at high notes - all the better for his failure to reach them.
And all the while, Malcolm's music comes and goes in waves and tsunamis. Oh! It is the best stuff Barry Burns has had his name associated with since 'No Education = No Future (Fuck The Curfew EP)'. Perhaps there's been some changes in the water up in Falkirk. Will the next Mogwai LP be this much of a renaissance?
Well, maybe. But who cares? It won't be this. It won't contain the terrible beauty conjured up in 'Peep-Peep' ("it's not me who changed/I still love to roam/just pick me up and take me home"). Or the sheer balls of 'Serenade', which comes on like a Ruff Ryders/Chris Rea soundclash... cheap Casio beats, swirling strings, and utterly, utterly lovely piece of mouth-sound from Dr Moffat. In truth, the only thing missing from this record is that long rumoured Kylie collaboration.
"Moon Be Full Tonight," croons Moffat wistfully, as the album draws to a gentle close, breathy, tired, spent and ashamed, like the dying gasps of some doomed act of coitus. "Moon Be Full Tonight, and I will find my bride. And she'll be good to me."
Ah, if only.
ADAM ALPHABET