Malcolm Middleton

★★★★ Bananas TRIASSIC TUSK. DL/LP

Arab Strap guitarist’s seventh own-name album returns to pastures blue.

Those hoping Malcolm Middleton would finish scratching the electro itch that’s stalked his output for almost a decade can pick up Bananas without fear. Backed by a drums/double-bass/piano trio, East Fife’s majordomo of mope is back on the honkytonk red-eye that drove his fine run of mid-’00s albums, tapping a vein of gallows heartache worthy of Harry Nilsson choking on a soggy hanky. There’s a counterintuitive spring in his stride, from opener Gut Feeling into Love Is A Momentary Lapse Of Self-Loathing, an exalted place of peak-Malc with its jaunty abnegation (“Fuck off with your happiness”) and sunshine harmonies from Jenny Reeve and King Creosote. Latter-day digital digressions have left agreeable traces – Man Up, Man Down squelches technoprog textures into disconsolate piano – while closer Salamander Grey is stormy plainsong. He’s never sounded in a sadder, or better place.