Frightened Rabbit: Pedestrian Verse (review)

Frightened Rabbit: Pedestrian Verse (Atlantic, 2013)

There’s a whole lot of illness and injury in this record.  Vomit on shoes, shattered bones, an abused child breathing smoke in a loveless home, buried skulls…not exactly the music that will soundtrack your summer pool party.  For this, their fourth studio album and first for Atlantic Records, Frightened Rabbit complete their evolution into a potent stadium rock band.  The songs, despite the darkness of the lyrics and subject matter, are placed in front of powerful guitar-bass-drums rock songs, fleshed out by well-placed organs and synths.  Frontman Scott Hutchinson hasn’t toned down his thick burr for major label consumption, and while his accent is distinctive, his voice (mixed high) is expressive and clear, and often feels heartbroken and on the verge of giving in the desperation of the songs. 

Musically, the band have moved from the folkier sounds of the early records to something closer to that of fellow Scots Snow Patrol and Big Country, as well as U2 and Coldplay.  If references to those bands creep you out, don’t fret: there’s a sick Scottish humor to this record that the antecedents certainly lack.  “The Woodpile” features a chorus that begins with “I’m trapped in a collapsing building” and doesn’t end much better.  “Late March, Death March” acknowledges that there isn’t a God and that prayers are wasted breath.  The child of “State Hospital” has “blood thicker than concrete” and was “forced to be brave”, but is regularly beaten and thrown down the stairs and was, after all, “born into a grave.”   But, the song notes, all is not lost.   The songs are populated with drunk priests, balding plumbers, broken boxers, nitrous gas huffers, and suburban adulterers, flashing by in rapid fire, stream of consciousness fashion, like a drunken fever dream.  Or the memory of some really bad shit that has gone down, repeatedly.  

What’s really stunning about this album is the hook-laden catchiness of these dark songs: a chorus that begs you to sing the lyrics “this is a March death march!” repeatedly is a rare beast indeed.  Incredibly affecting melodies, rousing choruses, swelling synths draw you in, hypnotise you, and then, without warning, the poisonous bite of the lyrics takes you out, but also leaves you with something to hope for.  As Hutchinson sings in “The Oil Slick”, the album’s concluding track,: “There is light, but the tunnel needs to be crawled through…we’ve still got hope, so I think we’ll be fine.”  A stunningly affecting, emotionally complex, beautiful record.