LISTENING TO - Half-Told Tales by Arab Strap

With fourteen tracks and a running time of fifty six minutes, this is a substantial slice of music to release onto an unsuspecting world. And in a first casual listen what strikes you is it's episodic character and changeable musical tone. Aidan Moffat's lyric writing is, if anything, conjuring poetic lines more magnificent and vivid here. With perhaps a stronger autobiographical leaning, often bemoaning the awareness of his bodily discomfort and increasing decrepitude. Prompting in Glamour Magic, a grissly foreboding story of a face lift that 'takes years off me' that ends up in a quite macabre way in the accompanying video.

Glamour Magic by Arab Strap

And it is this style of song that makes you realise the albums title Half-Told Tales is informing you why the album has this episodic nature. Each short song is like a briefly sketched vignette, of a personal memory, early romantic relationships, bizzare darkly gothic tales, ruminations on what it takes to be a man these days, the compromises involved in making and promoting your own music. The subject matter is as varied as the musical approaches it takes, sometimes they exist half way between being songs and a dry caustic monologue. Now some reviewers have found this album irritating in the extreme. Once I clocked what they were doing, I appreciated the album for what it is - a lyrical montage of comments and snap shot perceptions of modern life. Imbued as these are with Moffat's pet obsessions, bete noir's, the things that make him concerned, angry, melancholic, even sentimental over the pace and passage of time. Both musically and lyrically this album crackles with inventiveness and energy.

I Get Noise by Arab Strap

The album opens with huge propulsive intent with the track I Get Noise. This is very strongly drum led, the percussive sound and brassy quality is hard, with a pronounced flat thwack to it. And for a good deal of the album, its the drums that are central and to the fore in the defining of each tracks mood. I Get Noise is about the impossibility sometimes to escape other people's noise, Moffat ends up wanting - 

'to mute your stupid conversation, I get noise, I want to float above and fly away'. 

And the album does race out of the blocks at this unrelenting pace, with five punchy memorable songs galloping in one after the other. Then with Gape they slow down this hectic pace for a couple of tracks. These are quieter, more ruminative, reflective pieces. And whilst there continue to be rockier abrasive songs subsequently, the character of this middle section of the album displays how strongly lyric driven this album is, with words upfront in the mix. This album is Moffat at his most literary and expressive, positioned as a cranky oracle storyteller, the weaver of some odd old tales. From the track Ampersand onwards we return to the distinct straightforward style of the albums opening. 

Fragments by Arab Strap

The penultimate track Fragments does in its own a way explain the ethos for the entire album -

' death and life are in the power of the tongue, 

  but now everyone is leaving so young, 

  the plugs are pulled before the swan song is sung, 

  leaving fragments, sketches, half told tales.' 

Beats Per Minute by Arab Strap

The last track Beats Per Minute, is an elegaic momento to the impermanence of life, and leaves us with the choral lyric of -

'We only have this moment and it's already gone.'

This album is a mixture of tracks you like instantly, and slower growing revelations. I expect I'll keep finding little lyrical phrases and pockets of illumination, that suddenly have their impact upon me.  I suspect that given time and sufficient replays of my attention, I'll like this album a great deal more in a month's time than I do now. My current pick of its best lines are as follows :-

Under Offer by Arab Strap

From the track Under Offer, which is about returning to a house that was once your home but finding it greatly altered, ends on the criticism - 

' With respect it's like they've sanded away it's soul.'

My current top favourite lines are from the end of I Get Noise - 

'And tonight when you touch yourself 

Remember all the angels are watching

So put on a good show.'

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8