The Week Never Starts Round Here Reviews

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Choose nostalgia, choose girl-watching, choose unrequited lust, choose dope and lager, choose underwear fetishes, choose a four-track, choose Falkirk. Arab Strap are final proof, if need be, that the pre-millenium zeitgeist is adolescent, lo-budget and resolutely Scottish.

Is it just my youth, growing up a few miles outside Glasgow, that Arab Strap have so well sussed, or is it all of yours as well? Late night treks to the Esso garage for some post-joint scran;elbow fights with old punks at the front of the barras gigs;beer bottle pile-ups in morning-after bedrooms;conquests and knockbacks;quickening pulses and post weekend come-downs...all life (pre-twenties, pre-coming to the city) is here, and all set to the delicious slo chime chords and snap-shut snare sounds of Albini-inspired lo-fi.

"The Week..." is primarily about Arab Strap's girl-worshipping/girl-hating conundrums, set in a world where boys fetishise blonde hair and fantasise about idyllic sex with substitute mothers, but refer to happily oblivious ex-girlfriends as "pigs" and shy from turning perfect moments into long-term realities. It's full of sentiments you'll recognise, that'll make you laugh ("Phone me tonight when you are pissed") and the odd one you might not ("She looks best, Sunday morning, coming down") - no girl believes that shit, guys!).

The language and colloquialisms are so spot-on that the occasional mis-choice sticks out a mile ("the sack" for bed in lowlands Scotland?).

There's even a great example of late night under(bed)cover whisperings into a tape recorder which includes the following utterly convincing line, "I hope i dinnae wake my mother up." The intimacy which results is genuinely goose-pimpling.

This isn't the place where Jarvis Cocker meets Irvine Welsh (despite "Thoughts of your sister helped us wank"). It goes deeper and wider than that. This is your life.
Jade Gordon | Melody Maker