Over the past year, Frightened Rabbit have sort of disrupted the general process of gaining indie seniority and have popped up all over the map like pimply, over-anxious freshman pledges hoping to go Greek. Some impressive tour partners (We Are Scientists, Pinback, French Kicks) have proven the existence of a viable allegiance to these young Glaswegians and, listening to The Midnight Organ Fight, it should come as little surprise why.
The core of The Midnight Organ Fight is dichotomized into a section of distinctly straight-forward indie rock songs and a section of restrained pop balladry. Most tracks are underpinned by bouncy fingerpicking and melodies immediate enough to make Ben Gibbard turn a shade of green. The melody, in fact, is the glue over a backdrop of some fairly pedestrian arrangements. In the instances in which instrumentation does stand out, it does so haphazardly. Throughout the album’s fourteen tracks, the band pick up and clumsily (albeit sometimes endearingly) affix drum machines and flourishes of synths and strings to the canvas. It seems natural to attempt to enrich and fill out the lanky garage-founded form on the follow-up to last fall’s Sings the Greys, but, more often than not, the accessorizing feels forced and superfluous.
But instead of begrudging Scott Hutchison’s (Frightened Rabbit’s chief songwriter) acknowledgment of the promise he possesses, there are some stand-out tracks here that warrant bookmarking Frightened Rabbit for now. “The Modern Leper” is one of the best tracks these guys have penned yet. Where, at other points in the record, Hutchison lapses too far into relational sentimentality, “The Modern Leper” perfects a balance between introspection and metaphor and weaves it into a soft epic shaped something like Springsteen’s “Thunder Road.” In “Keep Yourself Warm,” FR delivers those same anthemic qualities, as Hutchison labors through understanding relationship dynamics.
The Midnight Organ Fight is infinitely more polished and professional than anything Frightened Rabbit has done to date, but it’s to a fault. There are a number of reasons that could have caused such shortcomings–the band’s youth, the haste of the record’s release–but none of them justify dismissing Frightened Rabbit just yet. Consider it a minor work, perhaps, but don’t vote ‘em off the island yet.
