Playlouder - Music is the Network

"I can hear your heart" claims Aidan Moffat in the title of this record, and he's right - he can, and can probably hear yours as well. Moffat's lyrical concerns haven't changed much since Arab Strap split at the end of 2006, he's still preoccupied with romance, longing and sex (and a hell of a lot of it).

It's tempting to describe Moffat as a sort of Scottish Serge Gainsbourg, but it soon becomes apparent that this is a pretty lazy comparison, based on nothing more than a sniggering-schoolboy reaction to the moans, groans, and profanity in the record. In fact, Moffat's more a sort of anti-Serge; while Gainsbourg's work is fixated with an overly romanticised view of lust and sexuality, Moffat's lyrics are rooted in an unapologetic realism, which is what gives his work such a universal appeal.

In fact, much of this record deals with the tension between the overly idealised romances so beloved of pop music lyricists, and the comparatively flawed encounters of real life. Moffat's everyman narrator describes a series of dalliances, some remembered nosatlgically, and some regretfully, but always with an affection for the complications, ambiguities and imperfections of real life. However, this litany of lays is contrasted by a score consisting of references to cinematic melodrama, occasional snatches of blue-eyed soul, and a pronounced faux-vinyl crackle that recall the idealised sentimentality we feel both because of, and towards, pop culture. This comparison is at its most apparent on Hopelessly Devoted, a monologue speculating about the future of Grease's young protogonists ('How did it work out for Sandy and Danny / Did she turn intae a cow, did he turn intae a fanny?').

While all this might sound rather pessimistic on paper, Moffat delivers his observations with a wit that belies an underlying affection for his subject matter. And even he's not immune to occasional sentimental flights of fancy - 'I've been planning all our future conversations / and picturing your curls on my chest' he sings on Monday. Fantasy Time before being brought brutally back to reality by an irate answerphone message on the next track. In fact, this sort of bathos is employed liberally throughout the album - continually contrasting the differences between the romanticised and the real. However, Moffat refuses to be morose or cynical about this disparity between our expectations and our reality, and as a result, this album forms an impassioned love-letter to romance, in all it's uncertain, messy, everyday glory.