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7 / 10 Due to his role in Arab Strap, Malcolm Middleton has forever been tarnished with the ‘miserable bastard’ brush, despite the fact that the now-defunct Glaswegian mumblers could elicit belly-laughs from anyone who bothered to listen to their lyrics. Although this album’s hardly packed with merry japes and wall-to-wall dancefloor burners, you can at least sense a flame of musical optimism in what is his third solo effort. ‘Fight Like The Night’ buzzes with the energy of Sonic Youth going electro, while the final blow-out of ‘Superhero Songwriters’ is resplendent with all the strings and brass of a Broadway musical. The moments of dark introspection still linger in the album’s secluded corners, but overall, ‘A Brighter Beat’ is exactly that.

Hardeep Phull

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