2008; Fat Cat Records; Glasgow, Scotland
Is this indie pop? I've been wondering. Because there's nothing beautiful. There's nothing that could end Frightened Rabbit along side late decade main examples Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes, and of Montreal. There's nothing beautiful. This is not music for warm days lying on the grass with your girlfriend. There's nothing cute.
And I don't want to spew rhetoric here, but sometimes there's nothing else you can do. Frightened Rabbit have a way of turning every instrument into percussion, mimicking the hard beating heart of the singer, wishing himself death and ruin. Trying to rip his arms off. Begging girls to leave him and declaring war. Hutchison sings with such a desperate calmness, like the pursued in a foot chase, pausing for half a second to choose witch way to run. Sure the songs are catchy but their more involved than that.
The music perhaps sets them alongside Los Campesinos, causing a cacophonous row using only indie pop techniques. But there's something about Frightened Rabbit, something about the modest and difficult honesty of the songs, or maybe it is just all based from Hutchison's delivery, but
It's hard to separate this album from your life. Its hard to look at this music. It seems almost self evident, part of the street outside, of the furnishing of your house, something thats there, undeniably, that's true without you trying to make it so. It should be so hard to listen to but it's just so easy. Something that's just part of life. That's what these songs are.
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