"I must have been missing the point for yearsI used to love misery, heartbreak and tearsBut that's just a memoryNow you're sleeping here."
Wow. What happened to Aidan Moffat? This is how he begins Arab Strap's farewell compilation, on a brief new song called "Preface: Set the Scene". Other sentiments in the song include, "I think we'll be fine." If this is how he feels these days, I guess it really was time for Moffat and his ten-year partner in acerbic misery, Malcolm Middleton, to hang up the Arab Strap name and move on. True happiness really has no place in their music, though plenty of humor found its way into the songs. This is, after all, a band that once named an album after the fear of falling in love.
Ten Years of Tears is sort of an end-of-career best-of compilation, except that it doesn't include many of their best songs ("Love Detective" and "Flirt" in particular). It also feels completely slapped together, but in a good way, and cheats them by a year-- they were a band for eleven years, but that's not very snappy now, is it? In short, it's an almost perfect look back at the career of a duo that celebrated imperfection and gave a thick Scottish accent to the id of dejected barflies the world over.
Moffat's "singing voice" can barely be called one-- he's not melodic in any usual sense, and the songs rely on the high quality of his lyrics and Middleton's clever arrangements. Middleton gives shape to Moffat's eloquent musings, combining them with unlikely textures. "(Afternoon) Soaps", for instance, pairs a slow moan about mid-day boredom, a sophisticated drum machine slide, and billowing ice-rink strings in a jarring juxtaposition. "The Shy Retirer" is downright danceable, with a pulsing beat and swelling strings to offset lines like, "This cunted circus never ends," and, "My eyes were rolling when we met and now they are preparing for attack."
The compilation includes an armload of non-album tracks, from B-sides and the single version of early track "The Clearing", which is as filthy sonically as it is lyrically, to the band's original 1995 demo recording of "Islands", which is sequenced to cut into the contentment of the opening track with a hot knife of ragged guitar and characteristic sourness. Listening to the live version of "Gilded" drives home how much these guys cleared the way, musically speaking, for Art Brut, with its tossed-off sing-speak and cranky rock 'n' roll undercarriage.
The compilation seems specifically designed to remind listeners that in between tales of drunkenness, cheating, rejection, fear of rejection, and extremely unsafe sex, there was a heart of humor. "To All a Good Night" ends with a hilarious phone call to a holiday card shop, wherein Moffat asks the exasperated woman, "Do you have any Easter cards with a Christmas theme?" in a perfect deadpan. The band's critically acclaimed debut single includes a verse about being moved close to tears by an episode of The Simpsons, and another wherein Moffat's friend Matt recommends eating less cheese to prevent nightmares.
But then, of course, it's always back to the band's meat and potatoes. B-side "The Girl I Loved Before I Fucked" has Moffat go from thinking he can be friends with an ex to wishing abortions and STDs on her in less than a minute. It's songs like this that I imagine led the band to break up, because such deep bleakness just isn't sustainable. Being so dour and dirty for so long must be exhausting-- you have to put yourself in a certain place mentally to brazenly sing a line like "It was the biggest cock you'd ever seen" over nothing but an acoustic guitar. Anyway, I'm glad Moffat finally found contentment. We'll always have the lousy memories.
