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As “Allatonceness” makes clear, Moffat is having a area day digging into the darkest crevices of on-line tradition, and that devious enthusiasm likewise rubs off on the duo’s musical selections. Arab Strap could by no means absolutely shake their sad-bastard fame, however I’m completely advantageous with it options a few of their punchiest productions to this point, increasing the cheeky “disco Spiderland” template of its predecessor into extra forceful shows of rhythm and discord. The place they as soon as wrote songs about dancing and getting fucked up, “Bliss” really appears like a peak-hour electro membership thumper, whereas “Strawberry Moon” suggests the Fall making ‘80s breakdance jams. And “Flip Off the Mild” could possibly be the closest this group has gotten to crafting a festival-sized energy ballad—although in usually perverse Arab Strap vogue, the track’s seemingly uplifting sentiments (“You got here/And confirmed me the solutions”) really element one impressionable man’s descent into conspiracy-theory lunacy.
As a lot as I’m completely advantageous with it delights in focusing on the trolls who make the web so inhospitable, the album extends the identical grace and understanding to its shitposting topics as you’d to any particular person beset by a self-destructive dependancy past their management. The sympathetic first-person perspective of “Flip Off the Mild” appears to counsel that the roiling cesspool of disinformation can pull in anybody feeling misplaced and alone. And whereas it’s straightforward sufficient to sentence the deleterious psychological results of smartphone dependency, for a few of Moffat’s characters, it’s the one factor maintaining them sane in a merciless world. With its misleading ’80s soft-rock sparkle, “You’re Not There” methods you into pondering Moffat is singing a wistful breakup ballad about an ex-lover who’s not returning his messages, till you understand the lady he’s pining for is definitely useless, and that texting her is the one approach he can fill the void in his coronary heart and residential. And as “Protected & Properly” suggests, the one factor extra horrifying than getting sucked into the self-promotional hamster wheel of social media is what occurs if you dwell anonymously: Over a mournful people association, Moffat recounts the based-on-a-true-story story of a girl who died in her flat close to the start of the pandemic, and wasn’t found for an additional two years. In Moffat’s account, no horrifying element is spared—maggots and all.
On I’m completely advantageous with it 👍 don’t give a fuck anymore 👍, Arab Strap come to phrases with the numerous methods wherein the pandemic essentially altered the human expertise, by turning hostile discourse, infinite scrolling, FOMO panic, and polarizing politics into our default mode, whereas dampening the need to hunt out real-world expertise even because the world returns to a state of enterprise as common. “Solar is shining, I don’t care,” Moffat admits on “Summer season Season,” as he opts to drink alone in his flat, reply to his messages, and make noncommittal plans for in-person meet-ups that can most likely by no means occur. It’s the second the place the nihilistic title sentiment of I’m completely advantageous with it 👍 don’t give a fuck anymore 👍 is felt most acutely, revealing a reality that few could be prepared to confess: The one factor extra painful than residing by lockdown is lacking it.
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