- Release Info -------------------------------------------------------------- -
Artist: Frightened Rabbit
Album: Pedestrian Verse
Label: Atlantic
Playtime: 42:28 min
Genre: Alternative
URL: http://www.allmusic.com/album/pedestrian-verse-mw0002455340
Rip date: 2013-02-26
Street date: 2013-02-03
Size: 81.08 MB
Type: Normal
Quality: 253 kbps / 4410Hz / Joint Stereo
- Release Notes ------------------------------------------------------------- -
The fourth full-length record from Scotland's indie rock folksters Frightened
Rabbit arrives with a few question marks over it, and not only because it's
their first to be released through Atlantic Records -- the major label the
band flew Fat Cat's independent nest for in 2010. While the first two
Frightened Rabbit albums grabbed the attention of the listener with urgency
and honesty, forgetting the notion of polish along the way, the third went for
less lyrical heartstring pulling and more grandiosity. Polish was most
definitely in, but Scott Hutchison's loveable habit of airing his laundry in
public seemed to have been put on hold. The omission of this key ingredient on
The Winter of Mixed Drinks made for a decrease in longevity when compared with
fan favorite The Midnight Organ Fight. For Pedestrian Verse, the
singer/guitarist welcomed the rest of the band into the writing process for
the first time to share the burden. Producer Leo Abrahams would be a key ally
too, reigning in their ideas to help create the dynamics that would give each
song the space to rise and fall when necessary. The resulting record sounds as
good as 2010Æs The Winter of Mixed Drinks, yet pleasingly is also as lyrically
affecting as their earlier work, if a little less bloodied and bruised.
Managing to be musically uplifting within the most downtrodden scenarios,
Frightened Rabbit's ability to build imagery you can almost reach out and
touch is as strong as ever on Pedestrian Verse. On "Backyard Skulls," you are
pulled close to be told "All our secrets are smothered in dirt/Underneath
paving stones/Lying waiting to be told," a metaphor that Scott Hutchison's
Scottish tone somehow makes sound literal in the way it has done since 2006's
Sing the Greys. Elsewhere, the driving, joyous "Holy" is a contender for the
best song Arcade Fire never wrote, while "State Hospital" is the only track
from 2012's EP of the same name that makes the cut. It's one of the highlights
here, boasting a great deal of space between instruments, allowing the refrain
("Her heart beats like a breezeblock thrown down the stairs/Her blood is
thicker than concrete/Forced to be brave/She was born into a grave") to arrive
with maximum impact, the guitars building among the reverb-drenched drums,
with Hutchison at his poetic best. Although produced like you'd expect a
major-label album to be, there is nothing to suggest that Pedestrian Verse
wouldn't sound just as good in lo-fi surroundings. The songwriting is the
driving force behind the album, and any reservations about whether or not
Frightened Rabbit would transform into radio-friendly M.O.R. are swept away,
although "Dead Now" is a rare moment that passes by without much incident. As
the playful guitars of superb closer "The Oil Slick" gradually mold into
something slightly darker, along with the typically poignant "We've still got
hope so I think we'll be fine/In these disastrous times," there is a sense
that the band is more at ease than ever, and sounding anything but pedestrian
for it.
- Track List ---------------------------------------------------------------- -
01. Acts Of Man ( 4:54)
02. Backyard Skulls ( 3:09)
03. Holy ( 3:39)
04. The Woodpile ( 3:27)
05. Late March, Death March ( 4:02)
06. December's Traditions ( 4:09)
07. Housing (In) ( 1:30)
08. Dead Now ( 4:08)
09. State Hospital ( 4:37)
10. Nitrous Gas ( 3:10)
11. Housing (Out) ( 1:04)
12. The Oil Slick ( 4:39)
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