Philophobia Reviews
With all the laddish swagger coming from the UK these days, you'd think our former colonial masters were happily trapped in the throes of some happy- go- lucky millennium fuck. Thankfully, here comes Scotland's Arab Strap to shoot shit straight for the less sexually jetset.
The first thing one notices about Arab Strap is The Voice. Singer Aidan Moffat is alternately cursed and blessed with a harsh tongue that can't help but spit out hurtful, unadorned truths. Aided by an unmannered, cigarette stained slur, he carries on with violence and dirty- minded, charmless aplomb.
Weaving disturbing stories of aging sex maniacs, Moffat captures the scariness of desire and despair with devastating frankness. Sexual violence, rough sex, memories of better sex, and the inability to have sex all figure prominently in Arab Strap's songs. For instance, in "The Night Before The Funeral" an aging hack picks up a young woman, but finds his body inadequate for the task: "I took her clothes off/ And I played with her bits/ And she did the same/ But it took me ages to come/ Too drunk and getting old."
Backed by a host of guest musicians, Moffat's gloriously downbeat world view is immersed in some of the saddest songs in recent memory. The combined effect is one that will send shivers up your spine.
8.4 | Samir Khan | pitchforkmedia
Arab Strap occupy the dark and broken heart of Cool Brittania ; their second, Philophobia, is the bleakest piece of Scottish pop culture since the dead-baby scene in Trainspotting.
Songwriters Malcolm Middleton and Aidan Moffat obsess over the details of their romantic chaos and drunken stupors, setting their disillusionment to beautiful, uncluttered arrangements of guitar, organ and strings. Their spare, naked songs are majestic as a teady afternoon rainstorm, and invariably sad.
The haunting "Here We Go" chronicles a cycle of fights and unenthusiastic make-up sex, while "I Would've Liked Me a Lot last Night" (Morrissey, your solicitor is on line one) sums it all up with "I fell out with my lover, I fell out with my friends/I'm still trying to work out where the weekend ends."
Joe Gross | Rolling Stone