Arab Strap occupy the dark and broken heart of Cool Britannia; their second album, 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 steady 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." (RS 794)

JOE GROSS