Arab Strap release their seventh studio album ‘As Days Get Dark’, via Rock Action Records.

The first since since 2005’s ‘The Last Romance’

, the album’s eleven tracks include the three singles ‘Here Comes Comus!’, ‘Compersion Pt. 1
‘ and ‘The Turning of Our Bones‘.

“It’s definitely Arab Strap, but an older and wiser one, and quite probably a better one,”

 Aidan Moffat says of the band’s debut for Rock Action, the Mogwai-run label which saw band and imprint just last week celebrate a #1 in the UK Album Charts.

“It’s about hopelessness and darkness,” he adds. “But in a fun way.”

“We’ve had enough distance from our earlier work to reappraise and dissect the good and bad elements of what we did,” says Malcolm Middleton. “Not many bands get to do this, so it’s great to split up.”



“This album feels like its own new thing to me,” Moffat agrees, pointing out that they were not attempting to “recapture the 90s.”

However, the album was recorded as a duo, and with Paul Savage, just as it was for the band’s 1996 debut ‘The Week Never Starts Round Here’. “Paul brings comfort and trust,” says Middleton, “And a sense of continuity.”

“I’ve never been interested in making slick records,” says Moffat. “But the new stuff sounds much fuller, brighter and better because we actually know what we’re doing. I think for a long time we didn’t know how to express what we wanted in a studio.”



And the frontman jokingly adds, “We’re still doing what we always do: Malcolm gives me some guitar parts then I’ll f*ck about with them and put some drum machines and words over the top”.


As Middleton concludes: “There’s no point getting back together to release mediocrity.”

Arab Strap have reunited and split several times over the years, initially parting ways in 2006, 10 years after the band formed.

The band then reformed in 2011 for a one-off gig to celebrate the 20th birthday of Glasgow venue Nice ‘n Sleazy, before playing a series of festival sets in 2016 coinciding with a Miaoux Miaoux remix of debut single ‘The First Big Weekend’.

Tracklisting:
1. The Turning of Our Bones

2. Another Clockwork Day

3. Compersion Pt. 1

4. Bluebird

5. Kebabylon

6. Tears On Tour

7. Here Comes Comus!

8. Fable of the Urban Fox

9. I Was Once a Weak Man

10. Sleeper

11. Just Enough


The band also have UK/Irish tour dates hopefully set for September 2021

4th Manchester Academy
5th Dublin Vicar St.

6th Birmingham The Mill

7th Bristol SWX

8th London Electric Ballroom

9th Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Boiler Shop

10th Glasgow Barrowland Ballroom

‘As Days Get Dark’ is available now, on vinyl an CD as well as digital download.

More at www.arabstrap.scot.