Monday at the Hug & Pint

The fifth studio album from the Glaswegian duo of Aidan Moffat and Malcom Middleton might be the most ambitious and bracing of their brief, action-packed career. While not entirely departing from Arab Strap's tried and tested equation of relationship-autopsies set to a disco beat, 'Mondays...' is so brutally focused, both lyrically and musically, that this might as well be the band's first album (and we mean that in a good way). Both principals seem revitalized following their recent solo forays, and if this isn't an early contender for the Best Album of 2003, that's only because competition between artists is so terribly wrong (just ask Marlon Brando).