Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton, the gentlemen who make up Arab Strap, have a reputation for being the last word in sad Euro-bastardism, moody lovesickness and morning-after regret. Although The Last Romance doesn’t stray far from Moffat’s lyrical fixations, the music on Arab Strap’s sixth album is a giant leap, one that changes the very tenor of the band. Gone are the measured tempos and cool drum machines of previous efforts; The Last Romance is a fast, hooky record that plays less like one man’s bitter inventory of stained sheets and bruised hearts than a full-on invective against the slow decay of love in the modern age.
On opening diatribe “Stink,” Moffat rails, “Come with me, but this is the last time/Understand you’re no more than a pastime.” “(If There’s) No Hope For Us” finds him grinding his teeth: “How did our language come to this?/We speak in grunts and sighs and shrugs.” Moffat has sounded battered by love before, but at the heart of The Last Romance is the sense that the world shouldn’t be this way, even if it usually is. This personal investment ratchets up the emotional impact, making it Arab Strap’s most affecting album yet. [Transdreamer]
—Eric Waggoner
