Arab Strap, Glasgow review: 'time's passing felt keenly'

Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton permitted themselves a smidgen of sentimentality as they celebrated three decades of making music together, writes Jay Richardson

Arab Strap, Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow ★★★★

Marking 30 years together and the release of their latest album, Half-Told Tales, Arab Strap frontman Aidan Moffat led a semi-ironic chorus of “Happy Birthday to us” at this homecoming show. Time’s passing is felt keenly on the new record: there’s fear, melancholy and wistfulness in his lyrics, overriding preoccupations. Live however, they still arrived angry, snarling and reassuringly horny, chemically enhanced blood still pumping, standing strong on the iconic Barrowland stage on the final night of their UK tour.

Opening with the high-energy You You You, Moffat’s weary distemper was offset by its steady, ravey electronica, belatedly swelling into abrasive guitar thrash from Malcolm Middleton. I Get Noise is one of the most punchily aggressive songs they’ve put together, with Moffat’s sneering, spoken delivery craving solitude but met with a pulverising rhythm and funky saxophone from John Burgess – a welcome, swaggering addition to their touring ensemble.

Fighting For You and Dollar Park followed, both sardonic snapshots of small town life, with the former seething in its dismissal of anti-immigrant grifters, Big Tech and hollow nationalism. Prowling, pacing, Moffat drew attention to his decision to wear shorts and jokingly suggested he might pull some Freddie Mercury moves. Otherwise though, he kept the between-songs patter to the absolute minimum, eschewing sentimentality to let the music yowl for itself.

The danceable The Turning of Our Bones strived for redemption through sex, while Girls of Summer harked back to youthful hedonism with a sprawling electro symphony. Moffat and Middleton permitted themselves a little straightforward poignancy in the encore, with the pair appearing alone on Be A Man, a paean to father-son bonds that rejects the false prophets of masculine ideals. They closed with their signature composition, The First Big Weekend, looking forwards and back simultaneously, any nostalgia still razored raw in the present.

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