Arab Strap: Half-Told Tales fits the filth for a big room

Half-Told Tales is Arab Strap's tenth album, and the first one that needs the word stadium in the same sentence as an explicit lyric about human waste. Released on 4 September 2026 by Rock Action Records, it runs fourteen hyper-detailed stories over just under 56 minutes. The record is being characterized as disco-inflected rock with stadium-filling tunes, and as the most outgoing, far-reaching arrangement set in the band's 30-year career.

The collision is the draw. 'Glamour Magick' can go from 'big fat lips from a back street surgeon' to a bath in the blood of a thousand virgins and then land on 'it takes years off me' like a punchline. 'You You You' puts a parent's fear for a son and daughter inside a five-and-a-half-minute rock song. 'Gape' makes room for 'the brown piss and yellow shit.' That is not stadium-singalong language, at least not the usual kind, but the framing is disco-inflected and built for big rooms. The scrape between filth and polish is where the album stays sharp.

The structure has its own draw. Runtimes stretch from the 2:36 'Under Offer' to the 5:31 'You You You' and the 5:16 'Beats Per Minute.' The short cuts do not overstay.

The main flaw is formal. Two different songs share the title 'Mr. Splitfoot,' one at 2:41 and one at 4:14. Other than the durations, the package offers no clue whether the repeat is motif or joke. Fourteen tales, at nearly an hour, would benefit from clearer borders.

This is not a mid-curve 3.5. A 3 would be another Arab Strap record that stayed in the small room. What is described here is a band that took three decades of claustrophobic stories to stadium scale and left the gross details intact. The titles, the lengths, the doubled 'Mr. Splitfoot,' and the plain mention of waste all point the same way. Old filth, new floor, and they keep the mess.

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