Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight [Fat Cat - 2008]This is this Scottish trio’s second album of buoyant yet biting guitar indie pop meets folk edged song craft, that’s lined with clever ‘n’ quirky, sometimes pained and cutting lyrics. Coming off like cuter & less abrasive version of their fellow Scottish label mates The twilight sad, meets a more wordy and uptight Travis with some classic guitar pop touches and harmonies thrown in too. It all starts off in mighty fine fashion with the first single off the album The Modern Leaper which opens with a tuneful acoustic strum with piano and big drum hits before lunching into memorable as hell acoustic strum meets electric guitar indie pop magic, with harmony vocals mixed with the tuneful yet slightly bittered Scottish vocal of the lead singer. The rest of the album unfolds at a fairly consistent rate though there’s nothing here that really betters Modern leaper,though a there few tracks that equal it. The thing that makes the project stand out are the clever and often biting lyrics mixed with the tuneful guitar tones, a particular favourite lyrical moment comes in the track Backwards walk where the singer details been stuck in a dead end relationship that he just cant get out of- with great lines like “I’m working on a straight line, between you and me, I’m working hard on erasing you but I just don’t have to proper tools” and “my shoes seem to get sticking to the ground, my trousers seem to love your floor”. All in all an effective collection of nicely put together & tuneful guitar based pop songs with clever, honest and relatable lyrics. Roger Batty
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