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Mar 4, 2021Arab Strap are back with a vengeance. And it’s fucking glorious.
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Mar 4, 2021As Days Get Dark is a remarkable return, a new Arab Strap that updates, deepens and re-energises their sound.
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Mar 2, 2021A comeback that not only beats expectations but has an excellent claim to be the band's crowning achievement (so far).
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Mar 10, 2021Moffat’s storytelling is utterly masterful throughout, tragic case studies abounding.
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Apr 6, 2021Despite the lengthy dormant period that preceded it, As Days Get Dark is a perfect document of that beauty, offering a listening experience as chilling, nihilistically funny, and emotionally overpowering as anything the band produced before it.
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Mar 16, 2021Arab Strap chronicle all the joys we seek and the catastrophes we make on what could well be their finest and most complete record. As Days Get Dark is a sordid, mordant, tender triumph.
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Mar 11, 2021As Days Get Dark embraces the old misery-loves-company adage by wrapping Moffat’s wounded words in Arab Strap’s most accessible and near-danceable songs to date.
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Mar 8, 2021Key to it all is intoner Aidan Moffat – “singer” would be pushing it. ... Indispensable, too, is Malcolm Middleton, who supplies musical raw material that he and Moffat work into oxymoronic excellence – cheap, tinny beats and thousand-yard-stare guitars, elevated by strings and saxophone.
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Mar 4, 2021As Days Get Dark carries on their traditions of intimate ambience and tug-of-war technique, but commendably, it doesn’t seek to summarize so much as add to their inimitable story.
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Mar 4, 2021Aidan’s scathing wit is more incendiary than ever: the vivid, often lurid portraits he paints of the society around him feel more vital than ever, as does his ability to navigate them with a grim chuckle.
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Mar 3, 2021With lyrics that encompass the reality of ageing with all its wisdom and regrets, and with music that employs the deftness of touch that can only come with long-term honing, Arab Strap have delivered their defining record.
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MojoMar 2, 2021The hair-raising honesty of their younger incarnation might have softened, but their new confidence and control ensure theses songs let a lot of life in. [Apr 2021, p.78]
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UncutMar 2, 2021A comeback album that feels vital rather than forced. [Apr 2021, p.25]
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Mar 2, 2021For a band as hardboiled as Arab Strap, As Days Get Dark is nonetheless a love letter to the brave, ambitious nature the band has built their audience upon. The swings are bigger, the misses are broader, the hits are even more rewarding — for Arab Strap, there's no other reasonable way to approach it.
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Mar 2, 2021Filthy, funny, affecting, Arab Strap sound like a band with a future again.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 19 out of 23
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Mixed: 4 out of 23
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Negative: 0 out of 23
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Mar 8, 2021Arab Strap return with their best work yet. A dark and thrilling record filled with sly humour, tangible regret and punishing emotional honesty.
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Feb 23, 2022
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Sep 12, 2021