Frightened Rabbit
Pedestrian Verse
9 / 10
Atlantic Records / released 2-4-13
Most fans’ introduction to
Frightened Rabbit came with their second album, 2008’s devastating ‘The
Midnight Organ Fight,’ which established the Selkirk quintet as, in the perfect
words of Chicago Sun-Times’ Jim Derogatis, “masters of the heartbreak anthem.”
There isn’t a better descriptor for their kind of desperately despondent folk-rock,
topped by startlingly intimate and depressing lyrics from singer Scott
Hutchison. Or, at least, there wasn’t when ‘Organ Fight’ was their most recent.
While 2010 follow-up ‘Winter of Mixed Drinks’ added more weight to the sound,
the songwriting didn’t measure up to its rawer, more wonderfully-painful
predecessor. It didn’t help that ‘Winter’ lacked a “Keep Yourself Warm”-type
anthem to root the album around and propel it to that tenuous next level.
Fortunately, that isn’t an issue
here. ‘Pedestrian Verse’ has at least three or four songs that surpass the
entirety of ‘Winter’ but “State Hospital” is the most powerful and, depending
on your taste, represents a career high. It’s possible that
releasing it in late 2012 as the title track of their ‘State
Hospital’ EP lessened its impact—hearing it for the first time last year was a
stunning, emotionally-turbulent experience—but as is, it serves as a
devastatingly beautiful climax to the album.
Indeed, its placement, anchoring the
back half of the record, makes the song hit that much harder. Opener ‘Acts of
Man’ uses bitterly sarcastic lyrics, belied by gentle, rolling piano and
light falsetto from Hutchison, as he begins to sing: “I am that dickhead in the
kitchen / giving wine to your best girl’s glass” is a bold choice of opening line,
but Hutchison is telling a story about heroic acts that are clearly anything
but—here, a “knight in shitty armor” takes advantage of a drunk girl; there, a
coward assaults a stranger in a false show of bravado. He is inclusive—“let’s
promise every girl we marry / we’ll always love them when we probably won’t”—as
he reiterates that there
are no heroes, but “I’m here / not heroic but I try."
It’s indicative of the lyrical
themes of ‘Pedestrian Verse’: at times painful and sour, but not wholly without
hope or redemption. In general, he seems at peace with his demons, at least
compared to the man who wrote frankly about suicide five years
ago. Font-half standout ‘The Woodpile’ sees him cry for help: “I’m trapped in a
collapsing building” and reach out to, well, who knows, but he
wants them to “come back to my corner / spent too long alone tonight” and
ignite the dead woodpile that is himself. It makes most obvious the transition
Frightened Rabbit have made from a folk-leaning, acoustic guitar-based group to
one built around fuller, richer, electric guitar riffs. This move may split
fans, some of whom are surely partial to the foot-stomping, Scottish hoedown
feel of “The Twist” and others from ‘Midnight Organ Fight’. Nevertheless, it’s
executed brilliantly and leaves hardly any room for complaint. Interestingly, the too-brief ‘Housing (in)’ and ‘Housing (out)’ personify this split,
as both use the jangling rhythm and steady beat evocative of that folky, dancehall
feel, with ‘(in)’ relying more on electric guitars and ‘(out)’ sticking with
the acoustics as they were used earlier in their career. Out with the old, in
with the new, apparently. It’s a neat gimmick, but they leave
something potentially great on the table by not fully fleshing out either
version.
The ‘Housing’ pair bookends ‘State
Hospital’ , which opens softly, telling “the most threadbare, tall story” of a
girl born in a state hospital to a chain-smoking, abused mother, who follows
that example in being mistreated and taken advantage of. The song builds slowly
with echoing guitars, running almost parallel to ‘Keep Yourself Warm’ in tone
and structure. When the drums come in on the second chorus, they sound like bombs
going off, as Hutchison cries “Her blood is thicker than concrete / Forced to
be brave, she was / Born into a grave,” and eventually, every possible layer of
sound you could want has been brought to bear, without it feeling as messy or
unnecessarily big as ‘Winter’. By the end, when the rest of the band joins in
singing “All is not lost / All is not lost”, the goosebumps are inevitable, in
a moment of cathartic release that makes one nod sadly—yes, all is not lost and
this too shall pass.
‘Nitrous Gas’ serves as a
denouement to the emotional intensity of ‘State Hospital’. Here again we see
Hutchison coming to terms with his inner turmoil: “And if happiness won’t live
with me / I think I can live with that.” The laughing gas reference doesn’t quite
land—Hutchison might have been better off naming the song after his favorite
liquor—but it’s the rare misfired metaphor on an album largely built
around them. ‘Backyard Skulls’ describes secrets or painful subjects, buried
away from conscious thought, but “not deep enough to never be found”, as the
skulls grin up at the sky, “smiling at the hypocrisy,” while the excellent ‘Holy’
plays around with the “holy/holey” distinction in a way that somehow avoids
being silly (probably because the song is too damn good). Again, Hutchison
claims “I don’t mind being lonely,” as he rejects false sympathies in the guise
of religious preaching.
Hutchison spends the album’s finale
lamenting his (in his eyes) lack of songwriting ability and wondering at the adoration
his work has received (“Only an idiot would swim through the shit I write”) on
the excellent ‘The Oil Slick,’ which he uses as an explanation for his
depressing subject matter and distinctive vocals: “How can I talk of light and
warmth? / I’ve got a voice like a gutter in a toxic storm.” It’s a moment of frank
self-realization that, like all such moments, is overly harsh but not
entirely inaccurate. In contrast to the unfocused, unsure ‘Winter of Mixed
Drinks’, Hutchison—and the band as a whole—seems to finally understand who he
is and what he does best, and that realization, which serves as the common thread
running through the album, is the most important one a band can make.
You can view their 'State Hospital' video here.
