Meanwhile, at the bar, a drunkard muses

You think you’ve heard it all don’t you? You think that The Smashing Pumpkins, or even Bright Eyes are the most depressing musicians to hit the earth. Well, you were wrong. I’ve found the most depressing music on earth. And I love it.

Arab Strap were little more than an odd name to me over the 90’s. However, when the fabled Bright Eyes came to play these shores, I saw that the band opening for them up north in wee bonny Scot-land were in fact Arab Strap. Further research yielded the information that Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis contributed to the instrumentation of this very album. And that was pretty much it. Not only does Conor know who to write a gorgeous tune, he also knows how to pick a winning indie album to appear on.

Arab Strap, indeed, aren’t a million miles away from Conor’s own style. The band are run by multi-instrumentalist Malcolm Middleton and lead-moaner Aidan Moffat, and most people see the band as a platform for morbid wailings. To be fair, there’s some truth in this, and Moffat’s dirge-like Cohen-inspired mumbling-talking vocal delivery could potentially be jarring. Personally I enjoy it, and I find his uninhibited Scottish accent refreshing to listen to (as compared to all the Brits imitating American vocals) – and also I find it to be a strangely sexy voice, and heart-warmingly honest – Moffat hardly pretends he can sing, so instead delivers wilting and touching lyrics instead. But you have to understand his angst really – Moffat writes about the sort of everyday emotional suffering of people, and living in a country as rainy as Scotland you can’t blame him for being so depressed.

Depressing sounds like a bad thing, but I don’t see it that way. Yes, Arab Strap are dark, but they make it their greatest strength. Out of interest, the band are on the same indie label as The Delgados and Mogwai - Chemikal Underground. The album title is taken from a pub, The Hug and Pint, to which Moffat and the boys send their heartfelt thanks and appreciation. However, the pub image stretches father than beyond the title. The second song is tellingly entitled Meanwhile, at the bar, a drunkard muses, and much of the album takes the form of a rambling stream of self-hate and existential angst – much like the results of a drinking binge at the end of a bad day.

The album, on the other hand, opens with the lightest track on offer - The shy retirer. It’s in the typical vein of the band’s sound, combining a steady beat with a spiralling lead acoustic guitar riff - Monday At the Hug and Pint, released earlier this year, is in fact the band’s fifth outing, or sixth if you count the live disc Mad for Sadness. Although musically it has a jumpy little rhythm, lyrically this is a real downer to any night out partying. Essentially, it’s about not communicating – not wanting to, not being able to, and the way impulses and instincts take control over rational thought. The song skims over all the hallmarks, the sweaty discos, the couple doing things they’ll later regret, the substance abuse and the police interventions. Wonderfully over-analytical, delivered with off-key moaning that Moffat is the first person to point out:

you know I’m always moaning

Meanwhile, at the bar, a drunkard muses strips the sound down, with a blissful backing choir and two simple acoustic guitars intertwining. Characteristically, we see Moffat looking on the bright side of things

So come on darling, break my heart
Mess me about, then shag all my friends

Musically it’s simply gorgeous, even though lyrically it may seem a little, erm, downbeat. What follows is the aggressive drunk, with the aptly titled Fvcking little b@stards. Moffat even sounds like the average abusive drunk on the street, hurling abuse at all and sundry – this one does something very perverse, which is to take something innocent and twist it through the warped eyes of someone at odds with his surroundings and determined to find the evil in everything

I don’t like the words that the birds are singing
I hate their ugly voices and the messages they’re bringing

Here the band crank up the noise, with thundering crashing drumming, and feedback laden guitar effects that shatter against the wall of sound of the first section. The song calms down some, but twists into paranoia and irrationality. A little frightening, but always as compulsive as the behaviour that is being described. Peep-peep eases the noise back down to the typically low buzz of Arab Strap albums. What may strike you is the story-telling format of these songs, that sometimes hit you with one-liners that leave you reeling. As the music builds, so too does the violin accompaniment, ending this one neatly. Flirt reintroduces the drumming to the album, marking the band’s desire to branch out musically. Instrumentally this is the most complete album the band have put out, as previous efforts preferred to dwell on the lyrics and tended to add only layers of guitar noodling. Meanwhile, tracks like Flirt feature a new variety, even including pedal steel (Mr. Mike Mogis I believe). This makes the overall sound of the band far more approachable, whilst lessening the potentially all-too depressing tone that something like Elephant Shoes reached in 1999. Who named the days sounds the most like earlier albums, although they sound more like a four piece than they ever have done, guitars, bass, drums, cello and a gorgeous female backing vocalist in the Bright Eyes vein of lightly moaning off-key accompaniment to the off-key lead vocalist. The off-key feel of it doesn’t necessarily sound bad, but makes it conversely a little more honest and somehow real.

Loch Leven inspires the mighty Scot feel, not only with the folk-song title, but with the bagpipe intro. Even the song itself has a new calmness to it, featuring a melodic acoustic mellowness instead of the nervous edgy stammering of most Arab Strap tunes. It’s like a modern day rendering of the sort of banality of existence that old folk songs never go into

The rain p!ssed down on Leven’s shores
the same rain would rain on superstores
and set off car alarms in our street
let’s burn our clothes and hunt our meat

An interesting and original conjoining of traditional Scottish folk music with modern formulae, and in this Bright Eyes are no small influence. Glue returns to the typical Arab Strap feel, as a gentle drumming offsets the fret-board squeaks and sparse melody. Basically it’s a song about the loss of physical attraction, and is an unambiguous call to move on when relationships no longer work instead of clinging on desperately. Either the lyrics are wonderfully down-to-earth in their straightforwardness, or they’re slightly banal. Take your pick, I’m going to sit on the fence.

Act of war reintroduces the cello backing, giving the album the same folky feel as Loch Leven, and in contrast is a song about sexual attraction your eyes were an act of war - in the time-honoured tradition of carnal embrace as a battlefield. Musically, it’s blissful, and one of the few moments that you feel Moffat is going soft in his old age, and allowing a thin smile to crack his lips. And for those of you who care, Conor does his screamy backing vocals thang on this one - which is always a bonus. Serenade however is the typical drum-machine beat and meandering acoustic guitar that the band perfected on Elephant Shoe. Once again, we’re on the topic of unrequited love

I’d serenade you every night
but you would never be home to hear it
I wrote your name with fireworks in the sky
But you never turned up to see it

And the song features the killer one-liner, I only go for girls I’ve got no chance with. What starts as a sad and angry accusatory song, the sort of why don’t you love me feeling you get from time to time, and goes into a blissful bittersweet bridge that is longing, touching and so emotionally raw as to bring a smile and a tear all at once. Gorgeous, magical and intricately subtle music ended quite literally with the bang of fireworks.

I don’t know what the story behind The week never starts around here is, but that was the title of their first album. A long lost track? A vague idea brought to fruition? Either way, the song has that full band feel that is a rarity on Arab Strap albums, who prefer sparse arrangements in which one key instrument is inevitably deliberately missing. Most importantly, these Scots know how effective drums are, and the percussion on this and other albums is consistently brilliant. A gentle song, the piano carrying the melody, it makes this 13 song moan-fest all the more durable. It’s fascinating that an album that can appear monotone is in fact quite the opposite. The band alternate between simple melodies and then more intricately arranged pieces, constantly offsetting the mood set by Moffat’s determinedly gloomy vocals. The finale is created by the simple Pica luna, that plays like a peaceful reflection on the emotionally overwrought wholeness of the album to this point. Sweet and powerful.

But what really hits home is how rooted the band is – the sounds of the street and of the rain appear from time to time, punctuating the melodies and underlining the connection to the land – there is even a map of the Loch Leven area in the liner notes. Even the album title is drawn from a pub originally founded in Falkirk, moving later to Glasgow. It isn’t about Aidan Moffat being a moany git. It’s not even about Scots being annoyingly over-analytical about their haphazard love-lives. It’s about the essential human qualities of sadness and loneliness, and a never ending quest for happiness and peace, in the face of whatever slaps dealt to us by life. And that’s what you take away with yourself from all the moaning and all-hope-is-lost lyrics. Don’t give up. This depression is supposed to teach you something. Don’t forget that. Just keep moving forward.