Arab Strap Share Horror-Themed Video for New Song “Glamour Magick”
Half-Told Tales Due Out September 4 via Rock Action
Jul 15, 2026 By Mark Redfern
Scottish duo Arab Strap (Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton) are releasing a new album, Half-Told Tales, on September 4 via Rock Action. Now they have shared its second single, “Glamour Magick,” via a horror-themed music video. The song makes light of the various beauty regimes people go through to look young and in the video Moffat goes through various procedures, with Middleton as the doctor’s assistant, but things take a dark twist. David Arthur directed the video, which also stars Jenny Ryan. Watch it below.
Moffat had this to say about the video in a press release: “‘Glamour Magick’ is about the pressure to look youthful, and how far we might go to hide our natural selves. It started with a few things I use regularly in middle age—caffeine shampoo, whitening toothpaste, eye cream etc.—and then I wondered how much further I’d be willing to go. New teeth, new hair, liposuction, eye-lifts, facial fat injections ... how long until there’s nothing really left of me? It’s nothing new, of course—the end of the song mentions the Fountain of Youth and Greek goddess Hebe—and looking young has always been an inherent human desire. Time is our enemy, and we’re all spending money on trying to fight it – it’s just a question of how much we’re willing to pay.”
Previously Arab Strap shared the album’s first single, “You You You,” which tackles aging, among other things, with their signature dark humor. It was one of our Songs of the Week.
Half-Told Tales follows 2024’s I’m totally fine with it don’t give a fuck anymore and their 2021 comeback album, As Days Get Dark.
“We’re 30 years old this year,” says the duo in a press release. “So we decided to celebrate by doing what we enjoy most: by making new music.” Half-Told Tales will come out almost exactly 30 years after the release of the band’s debut single, 1996’s “The First Big Weekend.”
Middleton says of the album: “The excitement comes because me and Aidan like and hate different things. There are things in the record that individually we might not choose but that’s why I like this album so much, because it’s not the one I wanted to make. I don’t think it’s what Aidan wanted to make either, it’s this bit in the middle. It might not be 100% what we want but it’s good for the band, and it works.”
As Days Get Dark was Arab Strap’s first album in almost 16 years (stream it here). Also, read our review of the album and our My Firsts interview with Middleton. The album made our Top 100 Albums of 2021 list.
The band’s album before As Days Get Dark was 2005’s The Last Romance. Arab Strap were interviewed in Under the Radar’s very first print issue in 2001, for The Red Thread, an album released the same year.
Read our review of I’m totally fine with it don’t give a fuck anymore.
Read our 2024 Self-Portrait interview with Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat.
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