The Winter of Mixed Drinks - Frightened Rabbit - Album Review
A band which up until July had completely escaped by knowledge, Frightened Rabbit have apparently been going for a while. Even more irritating is the fact that they're Scottish, and really good, a type of band I usually champion. Still, you always have to start somewhere, and my introduction to them was at T in the Park, where I caught a glimpse of them whilst waiting for We Are Scientists. I was taken aback by the reception they got (ironically, I had the same feeling when We Are Scientists came on), and as such left, as I felt too weird in amongst people who were quite clearly mad about the band on stage (who were very good, if I remember right).
Since then, I quite annoyingly started at the end buying their most recent album, March's The Winter of Mixed Drinks. I'm quite glad I did, as it's a contender for AOTY, a voyage of self-discovery and recovery from a bad bad woman. It's quite heartwarming to see a subject like that written about properly in this age of five-pieces composed of scrawny teenagers with identical haircuts (coughyoumeatsixcough). For every song that explores the depressing bottom of human emotion (Things, The Loneliness and the Scream) there's a counterpart going in the opposite direction (Nothing Like You, Not Miserable). When you lace the kind of outpourings present here with beautifully crafted melodies and exquiste songcraft, you get 10 tracks that all have a certain quality about them, coming across as both polished yet still harnessing the raw emotion that's been put into creating them. It doesn't do any harm either when you consider that each song is extremely catchy and sticks in your head for days on end.
As this is the first album by Frightened Rabbit i've heard, I can't comment on how they've progressed since previous work. Whatever they've been through in their previous efforts, they've certainly reached a comfortable and accomplished point with TWOMN, their 3rd. Hopefully, it'll serve as a platform to get them the greater recognition and praise that they certainly deserve.
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This was too short, but there'll be another review tomorrow, of Surfing the Void by Klaxons.
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