What if you could find a whistle along version of Perfume Genius, an anthemic\u00a0 Elliott Smith, or grin-inducing Trent Reznor?\u00a0 While not sounding a whit like any of them, Frightened Rabbit steps into every one of those niches on their fourth release, Pedestrian Verse.<\/i>\u00a0 Produced by Leo Abrahams (who has collaborated with Brian Eno, Imogen Heap, Jarvis Cocker, and Paul Simon), the Selkirk, Scotland band has delivered their best release yet, an album that combines lyrical desolation and pitiless exposition of social alienation with some of the most pulsating, sing-along choruses of 2013.\u00a0 Depression, homicide, sin, ostracism, and feckless masculinity never sounded so catchy.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
While relatively unknown in the United States, the band was formed in the early 2000s by Scott Hutchison, a painfully shy boy whose mother used to call him by the band\u2019s moniker.\u00a0 The band\u2019s third album, The Midnight Organ Fight<\/i>, was voted one of New Musical Express\u2019 top albums of the 2000s; it was an album that slashed and burned relationships until the only good option seemed onanism.\u00a0 Now, with the help of Abrahams, Hutchison has delivered an album that exposes social discomfort with uncommon rawness while camouflaging the open wounds under distortion-filled major chord guitars, soaring choirs, subtle stratifications of horns and strings, and the odd \u2013 and utterly unexpected \u2013 synthesizer.\u00a0 Reminiscent at times in tone and texture of Arcade Fire at their most bombastic, the overall feel of the album is, however, of a dam ready to burst, of curious restraint.\u00a0 This is an indie band asked to play at a Sunday church service. <\/p>\n
Lyrics are everything here, communicated through Hutchison\u2019s thick burr.\u00a0 In the album\u2019s opener, \u201cActs Of Man,\u201d a \u201cKnight in shitty armor \/ Rips the drunk out of her dress,\u201d and lest we think our guide is above the fray, observing, Hutchison tells us \u201cI am just like all the rest of them \/ Sorry, selfish, trying to improve\u2026I\u2019m here, not heroic, but I try.\u201d\u00a0 The song starts with Hutchison in unusual falsetto, joined shortly by echoing, Big Country guitars, giving way to booming, march-step drums.\u00a0 The drums and guitars sound as if they were recorded outside, in some foggy highland canyon, the echoes from near mountainsides reverberating and iterating into an aural vanishing point.\u00a0 The song answers the question, \u201cwhat does claustrophobia in the Grand Canyon sound like?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The next two songs, \u201cBackyard Skulls\u201d and \u201cHoly,\u201d are the album\u2019s axis.\u00a0 They are dark, violent, and rage-filled stories, their messages buried by catchy melodies, bathroom drums, clever guitar hooks, and sedimentary production that rewards many listens.\u00a0 In \u201cBackyard Skulls,\u201d we are first led to believe that Hutchison is concerned about old wars of enmity until he lets us know his real interests are the buried secrets related to \u201csuburban adultery,\u201d where metaphorical skulls are \u201csmiling at the hypocrisy,\u201d and \u201cnot deep enough to never be found.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHoly\u201d features an irresistible guitar riff that sounds like The Edge channeling My Bloody Valentine, with Hutchison skewering religious hypocrites while turning the critique back upon himself:\u00a0 \u201cSo leave me alone \/ You’re acting all holy \/ Me, I\u2019m just full of holes.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Estrangement is at the heart of this album.\u00a0 As is the fleeting yet bewildering surprise of connection, when against long odds relationship happens.\u00a0 \u201cThe Woodpile,\u201d about a socially inept wallflower, builds to a chorus that uplifts with an ambiguous refrain: \u201cCome find me now, we\u2019ll hide out \/ We\u2019ll speak in our secret tongues.\u201d\u00a0 The theme resurfaces on the album\u2019s next song, \u201cLate March, Death March,\u201d where a curse in church leads the narrator to darker ruminations and hints at much more serious crimes.\u00a0 \u201cDecember\u2019s Traditions\u201d is a first person story of confusion, doubt, and a narrator that knows that the relationship in question amounts to \u201clove\u2019s labour stain [on] a linen sheet.\u201d The album\u2019s red-hot poker in the eye is \u201cState Hospital,\u201d where the social outcast is a girl born into abject poverty who is \u201cA slipped disc in the spine of community \/ A bloody curse word in a pedestrian verse.\u201d\u00a0 The song follows her descent into street prostitution yet the song ends with Hutchison repeatedly insisting \u201call is not lost\u201d as a wall of ecstatic guitars and reverberating drums crescendos behind him.<\/p>\n
Pedestrian Verse <\/i>cloaks dark lyrics behind exhilarating music, ultimately sending a message not of defeat but redemption. \u201cThere is light but there\u2019s a tunnel to crawl through \/ There is love but its misery loves you \/ There\u2019s still hope so I think we\u2019ll be fine \/ In these disastrous times, disastrous time,\u201d Hutchison sings on the album\u2019s last, redemptive song \u201cThe Oil Slick.\u201d\u00a0 You can thoroughly enjoy this album driving fast in a convertible on a warm summer night, caring not a fig about the words.\u00a0 The whole thing just becomes more interesting if you do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":31486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[9148],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-43187","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-frightened-rabbit","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43187"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}