Arab Strap
The Red Thread
[Matador]
Rating: 6.9
Perhaps rather than The Red Thread, the brothers MacSomber should have
called their new album The Red Threadbare. The perma-posture of
self-loathing has-- to no one's surprise, really-- almost totally burned
itself out; consequently the group's dependably rich musical arrangements
have to work harder than ever now to justify the repetitious circus of misery
and sexual obsession that's characterized the band to the present. That's
the bad news. The not so bad news is that-- galling lack of novelty and
progress notwithstanding-- the boys from Falkirk have made another
better-than-average album.
The celebrated songwriting duo of Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton have
four studio albums under their collective belt. And they'd have you believe
you this is their best effort yet. Not so. It's simply on par. Moffat
continues to spin his grim little narratives about relationship hell and dead
sex, and his lyrics are as piquant, morbidly funny, and, of course, sad as
ever. In "Last Orders," he sings, "We could pretend that this never started/
That you're still shy, I'm still broken-hearted/ And we'll get pissed just to
watch the telly/ I'll get worked up when you flesh your belly." Aidan always
clothes the pain of love gone wrong in the most mundane details; his strength
has always been a knack for capturing those details and presenting them in a
sympathetic light.
The Red Thread offers little in the way of memorable melodies. Moffat's
voice never has and will never be a "song" voice. But as a vessel for his
ever-lugubrious poems, and as a foil to the florid but coldly impersonal music,
you couldn't ask for more. In the tension between Moffat's acrid, pained bursts
of psychological commentary and the alternately pretty and negligible music is
where Arab Strap gets its most mileage.
Two sentences back, I almost wrote "background music." Therein lies the biggest
problem with this band. Not to disparage their music, as much of it borders on
gorgeous, but if the lyrics sucked, no one would give a shit. Let's be honest
here: the main allure of the group is their psychological dimension and their
bleak, haggis-sex-noir storytelling. You can slag a band like Low for making
the same album over and over, but at the end of the day, it's hard to wear out
"pretty." You can pick up any Low album and enjoy it (if you're disposed to
that kind of thing), provided you don't listen to several of their albums in a
short timespan. Arab Strap, however, leaning heavily on their emotional S&M;
routine, are bound to run out of tricks sooner than later.
This album does indeed have flashes of beautiful music. "Screaming in the
Trees" is the album's sparsest track, eschewing percussion and superfluous
instrumentation, while drawing on the natural atmospherics of the space
around Moffat's voice and a lone guitar track. As if to underscore the theme
of space, there's an inordinately long silence between the song's end and the
beginning of the next track.
"The Long Sea" is The Red Thread's most magisterial and engaging piece
of music, building up over five minutes before incorporating fuzzy major chords
over a minor background. Adele Bethel's voice and horns can be faintly heard
through the delay-addled din. Both of these songs, as well as "Infrared" and
the cinematic "Haunt Me," feature music that rises to the level of the lyrical
performance-- but that, more importantly, is of high enough quality to justify
the endless additions to Moffat's book of misanthropy and self pity.
Generally speaking, though, the music offers few surprises this go around,
relying instead of the tried-and-true guitar arpeggios, atmospheric noises and
orchestral, rainy-day crescendos. The album's first UK single, "Love
Detective," about a guy waiting for his lover to leave for work so he can
open up her red metal cashbox full of secrets, is typical of the band's
strengths and weaknesses. The emotional Pandora's box trope, the semi-humorous
reflection on paranoia and jealousy, and the vignette structure of the lyrics
are at odds with a lackluster musical foundation that sounds like hybrid of
the theme music from Rocky and "Peanuts" as interpreted by Fiona Apple--
a combination that spells "fucking awful" no matter how drunk you are.
I suppose there are equally valid arguments for and against a band like Arab
Strap. Some people will want to own their entire discography, not because
there's astonishing variation between the releases or measurable growth as
time wears on, but rather, for much the same reason people own several Raymond
Carver novels. Carver's stories are basically all the fuckin' same, and so are
Moffat's. Yet, where else can you turn to hear your basest emotions, your
most abject emotional episodes, or your most petty reflexes celebrated and
dignified in this way?
Moffat's gift for both eulogy and bile, and for making the unpalatable much
less so is striking, repetition be damned. And maybe some of his appeal
springs from the lyrical redundancy. Moffat, or at least the persona he
assumes for Arab Strap, is damned to pushing the slippery boulder of emotional
self-sabotage up the hill for all eternity like a Scottish Sisyphus, but also,
so that we don't have to do it ourselves. It's only music, though, so either
way, you're still fucked.
-Camilo Arturo Leslie