The Red Thread

Emerging from the pubs of dreary Glasgow are a healthy cluster of bands who specialize in creating soundtracks for a rainy day. Arab Strap is there to make sure you never, ever forget what a fool you were the other night when you went home with that damsel while your girlfriend was away.

On the heels of recent successes by citymates such as Belle & Sebastian and Mogwai, Arab Strap follows up last year's potent double shot of the "Elephant Shoe" album and the live "Mad For Sadness" with "The Red Thread," easily its most lushly orchestrated and diverse output yet. Vocalist Aidan Moffat is as blunt as ever with his half-spoken slurrings on lost love, infidelity, drunken escapades, and eternal regret.

Malcolm Middleton's often delicate instrumentation lends the affair an introspective mood attained on Arab Strap's last album, but also ventures farther into the world of electronic beats. They provide a definite thrust, yet are suitably low-key, decidedly not "phat," and even downright cheap and dirty sounding at times. Droney organ lines collide and mingle in the background, and backup vocals by regular collaborator Adele Bethel complete the hazy tapestry.

"The Red Thread" climaxes with "Haunt Me," featuring a string section rife with a dewy sentimentality at home in an old Judy Garland flick, clashing and eventually synchronizing with Moffat. It's a sign that perhaps there are a few rays of light peering through that mass of dark, clumpy clouds covering the skies of Glasgow.

-- Michael Chamy