*1/2 Arab Strap

PHILOPHOBIA

(Matador)

The Scottish duo Arab Strap have exactly one lyrical subject, sexual anomie and ennui, and Philophobia finds lead mumbler Aiden Moffat going on about unhappy, guilty, drunken sex and its aftermath for more than an hour. He's a better-than-decent lyricist, and he gets off some snappy one-liners ("She was the best shag I'd ever had/That doesn't mean I'm saying, bedwise, you were bad"), but they almost all blur together in his depressive slur. (One exception: the wry, dark "I Would've Liked Me a Lot Last Night.")

As for the music (mostly played by Malcolm Middleton), it's almost entirely uninspired, slow, three-chord rock, sometimes with a drum machine, sometimes with loud bits in the middle. A few friends drop by for guest instrumental appearances, including three members of the divine Belle & Sebastian, but it doesn't do much good: after a little while, Moffat starts moaning about sniffing his fingers or whatever, and the music gets into a holding pattern and stays there. You wouldn't put up with a friend's rambling on about his or her miserable sex life for this long, so there's no reason to put up with Moffat's doing the same.

-- Douglas Wolk