Aidan Moffat and the Best-Ofs -How To Get To Heaven From Scotland
Aidan Moffat and the Best-Ofs -How To Get To Heaven From Scotland
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Judging by his musical output for the last decade, Aidan Moffat has not always been an entirely happy man. As singer and lyricist for the brilliant but often rather dour Falkirk duo Arab Strap, he gained a reputation as sex-obsessed misanthrope, peddling tales of broken hearts, cheating exes and violent break-ups. Brilliant tales, it should be said, with clever wordplay balanced beautifully with searing bitterness and outbursts of the filthiest language (this is the man who once sung about an ex-girlfriend that “instead of a new platonic future for you and me/I hope you get an abortion or at least an STD”), but his music was never uplifting, never soulful – rather every song sounded like it was being sung with blotchy eyes and a pint of John Smith’s never far away.
But since the dissolution of Arab Strap, Moffat has, rather like his former musical partner Malcolm Middleton, embraced rather more upbeat themes in his song-writing, and now this, his first record with his ‘Best-Ofs’ (a rather informal gang by all accounts, consisting of the usual Chemikal Underground-centred bunch of former Delgados and Glasweigan band cohorts), is clearly the product of a man who has finally stumbled across contentment in his life, and as such has a quiet joyfulness that Moffat has simply never previously produced.
How To Get To Heaven From Scotland (its title cribbed from a pamphlet handed through his door by a group of god-botherers) is a gloriously romantic record, poised between swelling, romantic arrangements and plaintive ditties which produce a simple but frequently sublime atmosphere which at times captures the feelings associated with falling in love so perfectly it feels like certain tracks were written with your own past experiences in mind – but of course these songs are just as deeply and revealingly personal as all of Moffat’s output. He has never been worried about spilling out his heart on record and now that he has finally turned his talents to the positive side of love and sex, the effect is an album that breathes with romantic intent, providing, from the jaunty Big Blonde to the gorgeously simple Now I Know I’m Right, a captivating document of a waxing love life.
Moffat’s qualities as a lyricist also adapt well to his newfound happiness, never straying into cliché or pathos as so many lesser writers are prone to, and the words ring no less true for having the bitterness stripped away from them – it turns out to be just as compelling to hear Moffat singing odes to his new love (“My smile’s a song and you are my composer”) as it is to hear of his rather ungentlemanly wishes for his former flames – and it’s at this juncture that you recall that Arab Strap were also responsible for songs as perfectly upbeat as The First Big Weekend and as breathlessly love-struck as Speed-Date, and you realise that this side of Aidan Moffat has always been present – it’s just spent most of its time hiding beneath the rather abrasive surface that he, along with Middleton, presented to the world.
Of course, this being Aidan Moffat, it’s still just a little bit filthy, and he hasn’t lost his penchant for graphic descriptions of pregnancy, nor has domestic violence quite managed to slip out the side door, but here they find a new context, Moffat rather incongruously summarising after a list of physical indiscretions towards his intended that “I have never, I have never loved you more”, a sentiment unlikely to gain him any fans at Shelter. Sex is inevitably very much present as well, and on Oh Men! he recites a heartfelt plea for all men who just want to have a look at other women, arguing that we are all “slaves to our erections”, to a chorus of whistling and hooting from the Best-Ofs, whose telling contribution to what is essentially a solo record is to turn a handful of the tracks into rambunctious and entertaining pub sing-alongs, losing none of their charm in the process. After all these years it still sounds like Aidan Moffat’s perched at the bar, but now he finally sounds like he’s grinning into his pint.
Words: Matti Gregory