Monday at the Hug and Pint : Arab Strap : Review : Rolling Stone

Malcolm Middleton and Aidan Moffat, the creative core of Arab Strap, formed a band after they discovered they were both seeing the same girl in their small town of Falkirk, Scotland. That they named their new outfit after a particularly curious piece of S&M attire is not as curious as the fact that they spent the last six years picking apart their failed relationships over the course of five increasingly austere studio albums. The group's latest is heady listening, as Moffat's deadpan drunken vocals rarely sound in tune with Middleton's stark electronic soundtrack. Hall and Oates they're not, but amidst the squall there are revelations: The sublime "Who Named the Days?," with its ghostly strings and brushed rhythms, is as softly engaging as the childlike question its title ponders, while the windswept "Act of War" puts the singer's antipathy in full view ("When we attacked it was never swiftly"). It's nothing that a few visits to the therapist (and a couple music lessons) wouldn't fix, but why bother? Rock music rarely gets this raw.

AIDIN VAZIRI
(April 21, 2003)