Menacingly poetic, darkly humorous, searingly sordid and the sweetly sarcastic? It can only be the return of Scotland’s Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton with another fabulously articulate assault on the self and society’s sadness and strangeness. Following 2021’s acclaimed As Days Get Dark, and with a sweary, thumbs up album title and cover art mixing classical art and vacuous digital messaging, Moffat’s caustic talkiness comes with a variety of musical styles – heavy rock to retro rave and dance music, with a recurring themes of isolation, smartphones and depression. On opener Allatonceness, with a video set out as electronica messenging, the lyrics are an instant ear-grabber – “They've got your attention / The fat and the furious, and your attrophied legs can't run / They've got your attention/ The juvenile jilted, derailing all discourse for fun / They've got your attention /The slapstick insurgents, with giggles and shits and grenades …” Or then there’s the fabulous Bliss, a vicious but sharp take down of social media and the isolation that technology creates: “She lives and laughs until she cries / But love-heart shades hide ember eyes / In sunlit selfies, teeth and tan/ A garish drink, a well-toned man … They said beware of strangers, but now that's all we are / Rolling real-time autofiction, reveries with avatars.” Poetic, powerful, passionate, but also full of gallows humour, this is potent poetic, vividly articulate, viciously perceptive along to a catchy dance soundtrack. Some of the many other highlights include the rolling drums and dysfunctional relationship of Sociometer Blues, the messaging isolation of You’re Not There, or the dark horror and old-school electronica of Strawberry Moon. They may say they don’t give a fuck anymore but Moffat and Middleton certainly do, and have very much still got it. Out on Rock Action Records.
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