- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Easily its most lushly orchestrated and diverse output yet.
-
'The Red Thread' is a frequently beautiful record, as dark and twisted and funny as anything the band have ever produced.
-
Alternative PressFive years later, it's easy to be blasé about [Aidan] Moffat's disgruntled first-person narratives. [#154, p.68]
-
Like a rainy day, the music is cinematic and pulses with understated energy. The prominent drums, like dance beats on codeine, tick by metronomically -- and their interplay with Moffat's mumbled, half-spoken, too-human voice is already remarkable.
-
SpinThey're still tilling the same murky patch, but they're pulling up prettier weeds each time out. [5/2001, p.147]
-
Probably now their most accessible album, as they change things up a lot more than they have with past releases, implementing different sounds in nearly every track.
-
Arab Strap mix the stoic, set-permanently-at-dawn folk whispers of last year's Elephant Shoe with the beat-friendly sense of their best early singles: "The First Big Weekend," "(Afternoon) Soaps," "Cherubs." The music sheds its amateur charm for the sound of a band in control of its art and its drum machines.
-
While previous records have consisted almost entirely of a simple guitar/vocals/drum-machine arrangement, this fourth longplayer finds different sonic deployments.
-
The music offers few surprises this go around, relying instead of the tried-and-true guitar arpeggios, atmospheric noises and orchestral, rainy-day crescendos.
-
Yes, then, Arab Strap are a terrific band, with possibilities that seem infinite. Still, I am certain that the songs on The Red Thread could have been better if the group had bypassed its trademark vocal style and actually played along with the lyrics, singing as if something in the lives of its characters were at stake.
-
Floats, captivates, and repulses simultaneously.
-
But though the music is as good as anything they've ever done, rarely resorting to that downbeat, drunk-in-pub-tells-his-life-story tendency they've too often made their trademark, the lyrics are way below [Aidan] Moffat's usual standard.
-
The WireUnremittingly bleak but absolutely compelling. [#204, p.68]
-
A richer, more confident manifestation of their languid dysfunction than their previous work.
-
Arab Strap's gradual refinements have hit a peak, but don't expect anything new. Slithery programmed beats, tingly guitars, plodding rhythms, and whispered/warbled sing-speak lead the way yet again, with occasional piano licks and strings thrown in for very good atmospheric measure.
-
This is largely Arab Strap on familiar ground: filmic guitar atmospherics backing an extended bout of post-coital melancholy.
-
Entertainment WeeklyAidan Moffat's bitter tales of messy love and messier sex are wrapped in windy textures and gurgling undertones that obscure his misanthropic tendencies. [3/9/2001, p.83]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 2 out of 2
-
Mixed: 0 out of 2
-
Negative: 0 out of 2
-
PoPeRSep 3, 2001Incredible musical landscapes, great!