Arab Strap - Half-Told Tales (2026)
What I like most here is that Arab Strap still sound curious. They could easily have made another record built entirely around slow guitars and Aidan Moffat talking about getting older, but Half-Told Tales has much more movement than that. There are electronics, heavier passages, quieter piano-led moments and songs that almost become pop.
“You You You” is probably the track that works best for me because it has an actual sense of lift. The music keeps growing while Moffat stays dry and resigned, and that contrast gives the song more emotional weight than if everything had been equally bleak. “Be a Man” is another highlight because it is much more restrained and lets the writing breathe.
The problem is that the album is still too long for what it is. Fourteen tracks and nearly an hour mean that some ideas get repeated. Moffat’s voice and writing style are so distinctive that a weaker song cannot really hide. When the lyric is strong, I am completely inside it. When it is not, I start hearing the same cadence, the same dry punchline, the same emotional territory.
There are also moments where the arrangements feel more interesting than the songs themselves. Malcolm Middleton gives the record a lot of colour, but that does not always translate into something I remember afterwards.
Still, I prefer this to a safe late-career record. Arab Strap are not trying to recreate the past, and the best songs have enough tension and personality to justify the album completely.
Strong, varied and often very good, but a little too long and not consistently memorable enough for 70+.
Genre: Indie Rock
Country: UK
Final Verdict: 67% (Good Album)
Yearly Ranking: 141th / 688
Highlight: You You You
Made me think of:
The Twilight Sad
Bill Callahan
Tindersticks
#newalbum #newalbum2026 #albumrelease #newmusic #albumoftheday #nowspinning #NowPlaying #musicdiscovery
#IndieRock #ArabStrap #UK
#LP #Album #release
