i was just going to say all that.

kind of.

anyway, i was not really feeling this at first for some reason, maybe because i was already used to a lot of these songs in demo or live form, but today, they really kicked in. this record reminds me of old records that i used to get excited about when i was first getting into music. there is a ton of heart running thru these tunes and i totally agree about the production and growth in songwriting... these guys are really growing up as a band.

a few random things:

-"Floating In The Forth" reminds me of an REM ballad
-i don't think there is any bass on this record
-i like the vocal overdubs and use of stereo seperation
-the lyrics on "My Backwards Walk" just kill me
-i love that the delicate parts of the band's sound are more delicate and the big rock out moments are bigger than before too.

i'm proud of them.

These guys are Scottish, and that's probably the most important think that can be said about them. The accent is powerful. It's thick, but perfectly understandable. Lead singer Scott Hutchinson has one of the most emotive voices I think I've ever head. And accent + emotion is pretty much all I'm looking for. Hutchinsons voice carries the songs, which are elegant in their simplicity.

The albums first track, "The Modern Lepper" is the Rabbits at their most grandoise. The build is incredible. There truly isn't that much going on in the track, but Frightened Rabbit is definitely much more than the sum of its parts. The songs are not a series of competing melodies, but a composition - every acoustic strum, every keyboard fill carefully placed for the desired effect. What a great track! I think I'll listen to it right now...

There's such a folksy quality to the music here, with its very organic sounds and production and plethora of acoustic guitars, but it also has a more rocking and urban feel to it. I can't imagine even Glasgow to be that urban, so I think this record really captures the essence of what I think about Scotland.

The tracks overall range from the grandoise of "The Modern Leper" and standout "Keep Yourself Warm" to awesome-but-emo-as-fuck-acousti-numbers like "Poke," which is soft, with a great melody and all the right flourishes to make it an anthem-in-disguise. These softer tracks highlight the Rabbits lyricism, which pretty safely files under the world-weary-because-my-girlfriend-broke-up-with-me category that I love so much. On "Keep Yourself Warm," Hutchinson sings, 'You won't find love in a hole/It takes more than fucking someone to keep yourself warm...' I love that.

On "Floating in the Forth," 'You just stepped inthe front of my house/And I'll never see you again/I closed my eyes for a second/And when they opened you weren't there/And the door shut, shut/I was vacuum packed/Shrink wrapped out of air/And the spine collapses/And the eyes rolled back to stare at my starving brain/And fully clothed I float away/Down the fourth and to the sea/I think I'll save suicide for another day...' That's urban poetry right there. It translates a simply scene of loss into a broad pallate of painful emotions. All the while there's this beautiful chorus of voices and a divine keyboard melody in the backround that just makes you stop and think, THIS IS WHAT GREAT MUSIC IS.

I wasn't as sold on Frightened Rabbit's last effort, Sing the Greys, thought it had some of the best tracks I've ever heard, but through and through this is one of the best things I've heard all year. Everyone must hear this band.

how anyone hears this stuff and doesn't fall for it right away is beyond me.

Indie fatigue.

Gorilla Reichstag

Fleet Foxes/Wolf Parade/Bear Patrol/Gorilla Reichstag

Friday, March 21, 2008
"Part of me was uncomfortable with how polished the sound had become"

Scott Hutchison, above, at Cathouse; Below (from top) Grant Hutchison, Billy Kennedy and Andy Monaghan. All photos by The Pop Cop







Date: February 29, 2008
Time: 20.45
Location: Cathouse, Glasgow
Interview subject: Scott Hutchison, Frightened Rabbit
Background info: Regular visitors to The Pop Cop will be well aware of how much we love Frightened Rabbit. We first interviewed Selkirk's finest export last August and the band's popularity has been on an upward trajectory ever since, although whether those two facts are linked is open to debate. Six months on, we caught up with frontman Scott, who gave us a frank and candid account of the anguish that fuelled his songwriting for their hotly-anticipated new album.

Half of the material on The Midnight Organ Fight should already feel cosily familiar to FRIGHTENED RABBIT fans. Last year the band freely gave away demos of The Modern Leper, Old Old Fashioned, The Twist, My Backwards Walk, Head Rolls Off and Keep Yourself Warm to anyone who asked (usually accompanied by a biscuit), while Fast Blood has long been a live favourite alongside the older material from their debut record Sing The Greys.

The Frightened Rabbit sound has been beefed up and improved beyond recognition for the new album and it's no surprise they recently drafted in an extra guitarist, Andy Monaghan, to do justice to the expansive weight of the studio versions.

The songs on The Midnight Organ Fight are almost entirely about the break-up of Scott's long-term relationship, a fact he admirably doesn't shy away from, either on record or when chatting to The Pop Cop. It's an honesty that is in many ways matched by the band's musicianship, which is powerfully raw and always driven by melody.

So here we have Scott's track-by-track take on The Midnight Organ Fight, straight from the Rabbit's mouth...

01 The Modern Leper
SCOTT: One of my favourites without a doubt, both live and on the record. I’m quite pleased with it as an opener because it sums up the album's sonic and lyrical scope. It’s not that dark a song but the lyrics are a bit more intense than some of the ones on the last record. There’s no beating about the bush, it’s a big tune.
THE POP COP: Are you the modern leper?
Yeah, totally, all the songs are about me. By the end of this song, or any of them, I don’t think there’s a feeling that there’s no hope at all. I always try to go for at least a slight upturn in the mood. There’s definitely a positive aspect to it. There’s tonnes of shit that goes with being in a relationship and there’s tonnes of good stuff as well. As long as it doesn’t get outweighed by the shit there’s always hope.

02 I Feel Better
I took a trip to New York to surprise a girl and salvage the relationship but it didn’t really work out the way I intended so I came back and tried to sort out my life here and put that to one side, which is the point of the song - to say, ‘I’m done with this’. It's about the process of recovery - getting worse before you can get better and maybe coming out of it feeling even better than you did before. It’s like shaking off a disease.

03 Good Arms vs Bad Arms
Same relationship, third person involved, I didn’t like him. Because you never like that person, do you? I didn’t really want to hit his face with a brick, I’m not a violent person, but lyrically I was hopefully hitting him with a bit of a brick. I don’t want to go too far into it.

04 Fast Blood
That’s just about shagging, simple as that. It contains the first Frightened Rabbit solo ever. It’s a big Slash moment for Andy.

05 Old Old Fashioned
It’s about trying to recapture some of the magic of where a relationship starts out. It’s a lot more general, not so much about specific memories or thoughts. It’s about a place and a time you were happiest and trying to revisit that. Failing, maybe.

06 The Twist
That’s a different time, a slightly different relationship as well.
THE POP COP: Before or after the one the other songs are about?
[Sheepish] In-between. I was imagining an office party or any kind of disco where you just don’t want to end up by yourself at the end of the night. It's not so much about me, it’s more open-ended. I don’t care about ending up by myself at the end of the night, I’m usually happier that way.

07 Bright Pink Bookmark
It’s an instrumental. It has the chord structure from The Greys with the trumpet part and drums from I Feel Better. I wanted to keep a homemade feel. I’m alright with it now, but part of me was uncomfortable with how polished the sound had become. I definitely wanted to include some more ‘how we used to be’ sounds in it. That was the idea behind that, it wasn’t filler. We haven’t perfected the whole segueing thing yet but we’re getting there.

08 Head Rolls Off
It’s not about relationships – just dying and leaving something behind.
THE POP COP: Is it about atheism?
Yeah, but it doesn’t matter so much, you can still believe in that [God] - what matters most is what you do whilst you are alive rather than what you do when you are dead... nothing to be done then!

09 My Backwards Walk
It’s about trying to shake off that cycle again - of continuing to go back to something that’s not necessarily positive - and failing miserably. There’s a lot about failure.
THE POP COP: Do you find it hard to sing?
No, not at all. I enjoy it. I’m more focused on getting the pitch right. Once or twice some thoughts come back into my head but usually it’s not really that connected, otherwise it would be a bit painful at times.

10 Keep Yourself Warm
It’s just about bad, loud nightclubs and bad, loud music and drink... then the outcome of those things when combined. Not a great idea.

11 Extrasupervery
Another instrumental, it's an extension of My Backwards Walk and The Twist being flung together. We try to throw songs together and see what comes out, it’s the theme and variation thing. The instrumentals are from our original 24-track demos we did at home.

12 Poke
It's about looking back on things and trying to figure out why it [the relationship] didn’t quite work out.
THE POP COP: Do you come to a conclusion?
No, never [laughs]. Still haven’t.

13 Floating In The Forth
That’s about thinking of killing yourself. I’ve asked a few people and most have their ideal escape route planned in their head.
THE POP COP: Is jumping off a bridge not a painful way to go?
I’m not too sure. You’d definitely be knocked unconscious on impact. I just like the idea of doing it in the fresh air as opposed to in a room. A sunny day, go out to the Forth and just... I’m alright now, I’m not going to do it. The process of thinking was writing that song and realising I didn’t want to do it, so I think in a sense it’s positive in the end. But my mum never listens to that song.

14 Who’d You Kill Now?
It's very lo-fi. It was also recorded in my house on a completely throwaway line that I have no idea where it came from nor what it means. Often I play these things to someone else and they’ll say, ‘You have to put that on the record’ and that's what happened here.

THE POP COP: What will you write about for the next album?
Joy. Horses. Candyfloss.

SCOTT: One of my favourites without a doubt, both live and on the record. I’m quite pleased with it as an opener because it sums up the album's sonic and lyrical scope. It’s not that dark a song but the lyrics are a bit more intense than some of the ones on the last record. There’s no beating about the bush, it’s a big tune.

Friday, March 21, 2008
"Part of me was uncomfortable with how polished the sound had become"

Scott Hutchison, above, at Cathouse; Below (from top) Grant Hutchison, Billy Kennedy and Andy Monaghan. All photos by The Pop Cop







Date: February 29, 2008
Time: 20.45
Location: Cathouse, Glasgow
Interview subject: Scott Hutchison, Frightened Rabbit
Background info: Regular visitors to The Pop Cop will be well aware of how much we love Frightened Rabbit. We first interviewed Selkirk's finest export last August and the band's popularity has been on an upward trajectory ever since, although whether those two facts are linked is open to debate. Six months on, we caught up with frontman Scott, who gave us a frank and candid account of the anguish that fuelled his songwriting for their hotly-anticipated new album.

Half of the material on The Midnight Organ Fight should already feel cosily familiar to FRIGHTENED RABBIT fans. Last year the band freely gave away demos of The Modern Leper, Old Old Fashioned, The Twist, My Backwards Walk, Head Rolls Off and Keep Yourself Warm to anyone who asked (usually accompanied by a biscuit), while Fast Blood has long been a live favourite alongside the older material from their debut record Sing The Greys.

The Frightened Rabbit sound has been beefed up and improved beyond recognition for the new album and it's no surprise they recently drafted in an extra guitarist, Andy Monaghan, to do justice to the expansive weight of the studio versions.

The songs on The Midnight Organ Fight are almost entirely about the break-up of Scott's long-term relationship, a fact he admirably doesn't shy away from, either on record or when chatting to The Pop Cop. It's an honesty that is in many ways matched by the band's musicianship, which is powerfully raw and always driven by melody.

So here we have Scott's track-by-track take on The Midnight Organ Fight, straight from the Rabbit's mouth...

01 The Modern Leper
SCOTT: One of my favourites without a doubt, both live and on the record. I’m quite pleased with it as an opener because it sums up the album's sonic and lyrical scope. It’s not that dark a song but the lyrics are a bit more intense than some of the ones on the last record. There’s no beating about the bush, it’s a big tune.
THE POP COP: Are you the modern leper?
Yeah, totally, all the songs are about me. By the end of this song, or any of them, I don’t think there’s a feeling that there’s no hope at all. I always try to go for at least a slight upturn in the mood. There’s definitely a positive aspect to it. There’s tonnes of shit that goes with being in a relationship and there’s tonnes of good stuff as well. As long as it doesn’t get outweighed by the shit there’s always hope.

02 I Feel Better
I took a trip to New York to surprise a girl and salvage the relationship but it didn’t really work out the way I intended so I came back and tried to sort out my life here and put that to one side, which is the point of the song - to say, ‘I’m done with this’. It's about the process of recovery - getting worse before you can get better and maybe coming out of it feeling even better than you did before. It’s like shaking off a disease.

03 Good Arms vs Bad Arms
Same relationship, third person involved, I didn’t like him. Because you never like that person, do you? I didn’t really want to hit his face with a brick, I’m not a violent person, but lyrically I was hopefully hitting him with a bit of a brick. I don’t want to go too far into it.

04 Fast Blood
That’s just about shagging, simple as that. It contains the first Frightened Rabbit solo ever. It’s a big Slash moment for Andy.

05 Old Old Fashioned
It’s about trying to recapture some of the magic of where a relationship starts out. It’s a lot more general, not so much about specific memories or thoughts. It’s about a place and a time you were happiest and trying to revisit that. Failing, maybe.

06 The Twist
That’s a different time, a slightly different relationship as well.
THE POP COP: Before or after the one the other songs are about?
[Sheepish] In-between. I was imagining an office party or any kind of disco where you just don’t want to end up by yourself at the end of the night. It's not so much about me, it’s more open-ended. I don’t care about ending up by myself at the end of the night, I’m usually happier that way.

07 Bright Pink Bookmark
It’s an instrumental. It has the chord structure from The Greys with the trumpet part and drums from I Feel Better. I wanted to keep a homemade feel. I’m alright with it now, but part of me was uncomfortable with how polished the sound had become. I definitely wanted to include some more ‘how we used to be’ sounds in it. That was the idea behind that, it wasn’t filler. We haven’t perfected the whole segueing thing yet but we’re getting there.

08 Head Rolls Off
It’s not about relationships – just dying and leaving something behind.
THE POP COP: Is it about atheism?
Yeah, but it doesn’t matter so much, you can still believe in that [God] - what matters most is what you do whilst you are alive rather than what you do when you are dead... nothing to be done then!

09 My Backwards Walk
It’s about trying to shake off that cycle again - of continuing to go back to something that’s not necessarily positive - and failing miserably. There’s a lot about failure.
THE POP COP: Do you find it hard to sing?
No, not at all. I enjoy it. I’m more focused on getting the pitch right. Once or twice some thoughts come back into my head but usually it’s not really that connected, otherwise it would be a bit painful at times.

10 Keep Yourself Warm
It’s just about bad, loud nightclubs and bad, loud music and drink... then the outcome of those things when combined. Not a great idea.

11 Extrasupervery
Another instrumental, it's an extension of My Backwards Walk and The Twist being flung together. We try to throw songs together and see what comes out, it’s the theme and variation thing. The instrumentals are from our original 24-track demos we did at home.

12 Poke
It's about looking back on things and trying to figure out why it [the relationship] didn’t quite work out.
THE POP COP: Do you come to a conclusion?
No, never [laughs]. Still haven’t.

13 Floating In The Forth
That’s about thinking of killing yourself. I’ve asked a few people and most have their ideal escape route planned in their head.
THE POP COP: Is jumping off a bridge not a painful way to go?
I’m not too sure. You’d definitely be knocked unconscious on impact. I just like the idea of doing it in the fresh air as opposed to in a room. A sunny day, go out to the Forth and just... I’m alright now, I’m not going to do it. The process of thinking was writing that song and realising I didn’t want to do it, so I think in a sense it’s positive in the end. But my mum never listens to that song.

14 Who’d You Kill Now?
It's very lo-fi. It was also recorded in my house on a completely throwaway line that I have no idea where it came from nor what it means. Often I play these things to someone else and they’ll say, ‘You have to put that on the record’ and that's what happened here.

THE POP COP: What will you write about for the next album?
Joy. Horses. Candyfloss.

Hey Chron-Tron and Simmy Simmy ya Simmy yo Simmy yay!, if both of you really enjoy this, do you think I, C-Poots will find complete joy in listening to this as well?

i'm hearing horns in my head as i listen to this today.

imagine how amazing thee rabbitts will sound in a few albums when they put strings and horns on their records... nice.

Good Arms vs. Bad Arms might have to be my favorite song. It combines that rockability with the emotional stuff and a side of country twang coleslaw.

I downloaded this like 2 or 3 days ago and still haven't even unzipped.

this album unzipped me