Sloppy reading led me to wonder (for longer than I should admit) why Malcolm Middleton would name his fifth solo album for ape hair-removal. The former Arab Strap multi-instrumentalist is known for his black, oddball sense of humor-- his 2007 Christmas single was called "We're All Going to Die"-- but figuring out how a bald gibbon would play into the personal themes of his songwriting was both intriguing and maddening. Luckily (or sadly, depending on your point of view) the collection is actually called Waxing Gibbous, a phrase that refers to a more-than-half-full phase of the moon and has nothing at all to do with zoo animals. For Middleton it is a sly nod to his critics who have long labeled him a downer of the Morrisseynian variety. "Look," he seems to be saying, "my glass is half full!" And thus he begins the record, which he has threatened will be his last for some time, with a track so florid and anthemic that you have to wonder if the former folky Scottish sourpuss has been on an all-Bruce Springsteen listening diet.
"Red Travellin' Socks" is not just the album opener, but also a five-minute thesis statement of sorts. It finds Middleton stretching his legs beyond the morose finger-picked acoustic guitars and deadpan delivery that has become his trademark. He experiments with jaunty rhythms and a bombastic (by his standards) arrangement that includes vocals shared with longtime collaborator Jenny Reeve that are some of the most melodic of his career. Though the song starts out as your typical homesick-musician-on-the-road lament ("I've left my girlfriend alone for too long/ I need to get back where I belong/ Take me home"), it digs deeper, exploring why the journeyman journeys to begin with. So, as the rolling E Street Band pianos (courtesy of Mogwai's Barry Burns) slow and the rest of the instruments recede into the background, Middleton sheepishly croons, "It's time to dig out my traveling socks/ The walls are shrinking and I think I've got itchy feet/ And you're needing your space/You're starting to look like you're sick of my face/ Take me away."
Listeners often mistake such unblinking honesty as miserablism, but much like Morrissey, Middleton uses self-deprecation as self-expression. There's buoyancy to his bleakness and a wit present in even his most depressive tracks that gives his songs spark. So even if listeners want to use his songs as sad-sack soundtracks, they were clearly not intended as such. That said, most of tracks on Gibbous don't follow in "Red Travellin' Socks"' lively footsteps, and that is probably for the best. Though the rollicking rhythms of "Kiss at the Station" and jaunty backing vocals of "Shadows" are infectious, I still prefer my Middleton slightly dry in delivery and slow and hushed in dynamic. "Ballad of Fuck All" is, therefore, the standout, a track that is reduced to just churchy "oh"s, rolling acoustic arpeggios and Middleton's unadorned voice. It feels like a Leonard Cohen ballad: torchy, sad, intensely masculine, and backlit by feminine backing vocals.
It's a shame that Middleton seems ready to toss his solo career away now, just when he's carved out a path for himself that is separate from Arab Strap. Waxing Gibbous is a good, if occasionally overdone, album that proves that his musical imagination is still a fertile one. That's the irony. Though he sings, "Everything I do is redundant, everything I say is a lie," on "Don't Want to Sleep Tonight", he is singing such a sentiment over unusual electronic bloops and proggy keyboard lines that are, in fact, like nothing he's ever done before. But maybe that's why he's finally able to see the moon as half full: because it's the last one he's planning to see for a while.
