“As soon as we started this it felt like album two,” says Aidan Moffat of Arab Strap’s 8th LP. “It definitely feels like a fresh start from where we used to be.”

2021’s critically acclaimed top 15 charting album, As Days Get Dark, was Arab Strap’s first album since 2005 and it started them on a new chapter that is now being extended and expanded. “When a lot of bands reform they are too preoccupied with the past and want to try and recapture a sound they used to have,” Moffat says. “Which is impossible, that’s not coming back. We’re not trying to sound like old Arab Strap. Phase one, if you like, was focused on the ugliness and messiness of romance as a youngster, and that’s just not what Arab Strap sings about anymore. It feels like two different bands.”

‘I’m totally fine with it don’t give a fuck anymore’ may sound like the title of an album by a band giving up (it’s just a text from the band’s live drummer Moffat thought was funny) but in reality, it’s an album that stands to clearly define a new creative period for Arab Strap. With the band having recently wrapped up a tour celebrating the 25th anniversary of Philophobia, their new album feels charged by a desire to move forward and explore new sonic terrain. “It’s been fun but I’ll be glad it’s over so we can move on,” laughs Middleton, with Moffat echoing him. “Doing the Philophobia tour has been a way of saying goodbye to those old songs,” he says. “It’s a very quiet record so I expect next year when performing live it will be banger after banger. We’ve earned the right to make some noise.”