Sun 7 Mar 2021 04.00 EST
For anyone not yet acquainted with the caustic charms of Arab Strap, their first album in 16 years makes an excellent primer. Coming on like a union between Sleaford Mods and Leonard Cohen consummated in a Glasgow pub toilet,
As Days Get Dark serves up bleakness and gallows humour multiple ways: âdejected, deserted and drunkâ.
The callowness of the pairâs 90s youth â they were named after a sex toy â has been replaced by something altogether more lived-in and existential. The Turning of Our Bones exhorts listeners to seize the sexual day, because to dust we shall return. I Was Once a Weak Man is a prize-winning short story in miniature, following the stealth moves of a veteran adulterer.