A quiet rage. Almost thirty years of activity, to which countless can be added side-project externals, Arab Strap do not stop experimenting and surprising the public: if the long-awaited return to the scene in style in 2021 with the electro post-rock chapter “As Days Get Dark” was immediately counted as one of the best albums ever made from the Scottish duo, the eighth effort “I'm totally fine with it don't give a fuck anymore” keeps the level of their proposal high, placing the emphasis on the classical component. Written and performed only by Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton, and refined together with long-time collaborator Paul Savage, the work moves between synth-pop/rock, dance quirks, darkwave passages, industrial and much more, and appears to focus on continuous confrontations and clashes between the real and virtual world, imbued with an oxymoronic “quiet anger”.
The pace of “Allatonceness” touches on metal memories, which together with industrial elements and post-hccreate a belligerent opening of strength, concentrated on the sense of growing restlessness with each round of drums and threatening guitar, with a surprising ending, typical of the lyrics recited by Moffat, who here effectively describe how one can be addicted to the madness that consumes online. The title of the song is taken from the book “The Medium Is The Message: An Inventory Of Effects” (1967), written by the sociologist and mass communications scholar Marshall McLuhan. “Bliss” gives way to synthetic pop with a darkwave feel, the peak of the album divided between obsessive rhythm and melody, which revolve around the theme of online harassment towards women and the cowardice of those who hide behind a screen.
Cowards under camouflage
Lobbing hate-bombs, hurling jeers
Faceless brutes and bigots
Revealing all their boyhood fears
Hostility, fragility
Rejected, vengeful tattletales
We built another world
But history and hate prevail
The bursts of drums sampled from the air vaguely baggy of “Sociometer Blues” lead to a pressing synth-rock epilogue, while the reflective “Hide Your Fires” slightly lowers the tones, with piano notes in the background and prominent electronics, and the thought immediately flies in the direction of some Depeche Mode productions . It continues on a similar path, including arches and passages noise, the splendid and melancholic “Summer Season”, where the key topic is that of the lack of “real” connection between individuals. The slowcore origins are not forgotten and is demonstrated by a piece like “Molehills”, whose departure is of an electroacoustic nature (with trip-hop contaminations) and features a few guitar quirks and sample of drums, to which ghostly shadows of strings are added in the second part, gearing towards a coda of loops hammering.
The journey continues with the synth-pop-dance atmosphere of “Strawberry Moon”, a personal track that concerns a difficult moment in Aidan's life, dominated by Afrobeat-inspired rhythms and hinged on a bassline enveloped in a crackling cloud of fuzz; the alt-pop of “You're Not There”, the album's only weak point, and the placid piano pace of “Haven't You Heard”. We return to the past with the chamber-folk notes of the spare and emotional “Safe & Well”, based on the touching story of a woman who passed away in complete solitude and left to decompose during the pandemic, regaining altitude with the refrains of “Dreg Queen” and the epic conclusion, between walls of shoegaze and post-rock sound, entrusted to “Turn Off The Light”.
An expression of complete freedom right from its title, “I'm totally fine with it don't give a fuck anymore” marks another valid stage, the most danceable and catchy, in the infinite evolution of Arab Strap: between new sonic boundaries achieved and urgent and current issues, the desire to hear the award-winning company (impossible to box in) Moffat-Middleton live in this renewed guise, letting go of that dose of quiet rage which secretly dwells in each of us, allowing us to (really) reconnect with others, is stronger than ever.
12/05/2024
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM