Description

Habitually described as groggy, beer-stained romantics, Falkirk's Arab Strap seem unusually happy with the stereotype. Hence Monday at the Hug & Pint, their fifth album, is a concept of album of sorts, a selection of songs about love and alcohol and related miseries apparently beamed direct from a pub, The Hug & Pint. The second track is called, with the Strap's usual eloquent precision, Meanwhile, at the Bar, a Drunkard Muses. Subverting expectations is less important, it appears, than drinking themselves into a corner. It's a curious thing to do, especially when Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middletonmore…'s last album, 2001's emotionally expansive The Red Thread, transcended such parochialism. ...The Hug & Pintis a murky, if often engaging, retrenchment. Bagpipes swirl forlornly, drum machines splutter, string sections bring the usual illusion of gentility. Moffat's familiarly surly, heartsick mutter, meanwhile, goes on cataloguing his own iniquities long into the night. That lyrical insight and Middleton's empathetic music ensure the likes of "Who Named the Days?" are still compelling, in spite of the deja vu their wobbly tenderness evokes. If, at times, ...The Hug & Pint staggers perilously close to self-parody, there's something noble and doomed here, too: a pinched, beguiling aesthetic vision being pursued until time is finally called. --John Mulvey

Tracks

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Info:

Category:

Music > Albums

Case Type:

CD

Release Type:

Retail

Comments:

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Cover Info:

Title:

Arab Strap - Monday at the Hug & Pint (2003) Retail CD

Part:

Front

Dimensions:

1316 x 1309 px

Size:

361 KB

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Report a Problem Wrong Cover Duplicate Image Bad Quality Wrong Info

28/04/08 by misty01

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