Arab Strap - The Red Thread

Chemikal Underground - 2001 - 57 minutes

With their decidedly cheeky name and classic song titles like 'General Plea To A Girlfriend' and 'I Would've Liked Me A Lot Last Night', the lairy duo of Malcom Middleton and Aidan Moffat have carved quite a career in the sweaty farces people share. 'The Red Thread' boasts no great departures, but reaffirms (after the difficult 'Elephant Shoe' album) that no one can write about bedrooms and backrooms quite like these two. Cinematic, but only in the sense of dog-tired musings from the back row, their charcoal songs are at times startlingly funny (the discovery of a diary of conquests in 'Love Detective') at others depressingly real (the emotions on autopilot of 'Last Orders'. Play this and you'll never look at a Saturday night in the same way again.

Harry Guerin

Tracklisting: Amor Veneris - Last Orders - Scenery - The Devil Tips - The Long Sea - Love Detective - Infrared - Screaming In The Trees - Haunt Me- Turbulence