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Heartbreak, inevitably, turns into self-analysis. For songwriters, that turn can be startling and preemptive of idiosyncratic, innovative death. Yet the desire to be cuckolded produces just as dire diminishing returns, as it becomes clear to the listener that whatever rock star is trying to tell you he’s unlucky at love is at best trying to relive former miseries, at worst lying through his teeth.
Which is to say Frightened Rabbit and its songwriter Scott Hutchinson have had a bit of a hill to climb since their first two angst-driven Scottish long players. Both Sing The Greys and Midnight Organ Fight traded on dangerous, intimate storytelling that swung to the band’s momentous favor by lower case indie rock rhythm section precision. They were as unforgiving as colleagues Twilight Sad or We Were Promised Jetpacks, yet as alive and of an indie moment as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs; from all indications, Frightened Rabbit’s third record was the logical next step to superstardom. By pedigree and soundtrack-ready sonic attractiveness alone, Frightened Rabbit could’ve been Death Cab For Cutie with a foul-mouthed streak.
Could’ve being the operative word there. Winter of Mixed Drinks was as messy a beginning to second generation Frightened Rabbit as Transatlanticism was a career launching effort for Death Cab. Some of the Hutchinson’s best songs are on Mixed Drinks (“Nothin’ Like You,” “Not Miserable”), yet the record was bogged down by the band’s desire to deepen and amplify their sound when percussion was doing just fine. Hutchinson’s yowl became a choral belt; guitars became seas of noise. Most of what succeeded on Mixed Drinks was due to the band’s remarkable pop sensibility.
So, one false commercial start into their uppercase Indie Rock career, Frightened Rabbit Atlantic Records debut, Pedestrian Verse is not the returned to rawness many would hope for. Instead, it’s a refinement of a certain kind of populist misery the band were already diving into with their appetite whetting State Hospital EP. Oceans of noise still swaddle Hutchinson’s verse, but there’s a welcome reintroduction of Grant Hutchinson-led rhythm section on the heartily backboned “The Woodpile.” Hutchinson just barely on the right side of too cute wordplay is still at “Square 9” levels – one can probably guess what turn of phrase he employs to cutesy climax on “Holy.” And while so much has remained the same, there’s a synthetic double bass beefing up the scant but stellar “Housing (In)” that reminds listeners that Frightened Rabbit, like their ancestors in Death Cab, don’t worry about the consequences of adding to their formula.
Yet listening to “Nitrous Gas,” a gorgeous bit of neutered, electric “Poke” impressionism, Hutchinson’s knifing verse still hits hard. His couplets obfuscate a bit more than necessary – “suck in the bright red major key / spit out the blue minor misery / I’m dying to bring down with me” – he still knows when to hit and hit hard. The album’s stand out first single “Dead Now” ends with such a raw wallop of a verse it’s hard to accept Hutchinson has taken any steps back with his songwriting voice at any point – “There’s something wrong with me / and it reads nothing like poetry / so will you love me in spite of these ticks and inconsistencies / as there’s something wrong with me.” It’s not a high-angst of something like “It takes more than fucking someone to keep yourself warm,” but it’s a symbiosis of self-healing and vitriol that walks a neat tight rope, one Ben Gibbard never really had in anything more that sputtering flashes.
Pedestrian Verse actually resembles Tranatlanticism in a few important ways – it is a relatively successfully move to larger sonics than would be recommended of indie rock bands such as this. It also introduces Frightened Rabbit to a predictably wider audience in very accessible yet artistic ways. This isn’t a jump to lightspeed reinvention for the sake of major label backing like fun.’s Some Nights. It’s more a gentle welcoming to the thematic realities Hutchinson and Frightened Rabbit inhabit – misery, well-placed but not cloying self-acceptance, and brogues. Frightened Rabbit aren’t ever going back to what they were, yet it is encouraging to watch the band figure out what part of the second wave of their career works best for them.
Frightened Rabbit – Pedestrian Verse tracklist:
- “Acts of Man”
- “Backyard Skulls”
- “Holy”
- “The Woodpile”
- “Late March, Death March”
- “December’s Traditions”
- “Housing (In)”
- “Dead Now”
- “State Hospital”
- “Nitrous Gas”
- “Housing (Out)”
- “The Oil Slick”
