The lyrical angst and musical euphoria are combined to create a shining place where you can both wallow in pain and also rise through it to a happier more resolved state.
On The Midnight Organ Fight, Frightened Rabbit succeed in mixing indie rock and traces of folk into 48 minutes of driven and emotional melodies that lift you up, beat you down and eventually bring closure. It's thoughtful but not self-involved, accessible but by no means generic, and brilliantly energetic but not without its more tender moments.
Even the album's lone non-breakup song, the propulsive, theism-baiting "Head Rolls Off" ("Jesus is just a Spanish boy's name/How come one man got so much fame?) manages to feel like it's trying to pick a fight and buy you a drink at the same time, a notion that pretty much sums up the remarkably beautiful and brazen Midnight Organ Fight to a T.
On the surface, Scottish trio Frightened Rabbit are like a lot of other bands. You could file them away with other musicians from their Glasgow scene, or other bassist-free groups, or other bands of literal brothers (frontman Scott and drummer Grant Hutchison are siblings). But somehow, despite the fact that their methods are well-worn, their product is one-of-a-kind, as their consistently great second album (in under a y
ear, no less!) attests.
Midnight Organ Fight more than delivers on its promise: tons of spiky energy, proper tunes and a real lyrical bite to the likes of The Modern Leper.
Amid such scene-upending sentiments, his band’s all-too- Glaswegian moniker represents a clever case of bait and switch.
There's a lot of beauty in The Midnight Organ Fight, but there’s a bit of bloat as well.
The Midnight Organ Fight is cleaner, more polished, and establishes that the group is indeed maturing, but thankfully not losing themselves.
I can still remember the day that we received the news of Scott Hutchison's passing. It tore me up in a way no celebrity death had ever done before and whenever I listen to this record in particular it still does. This is a shattered, broken, needy record and yet there's so much perseverance and hope underneath its ripped and tattered layers.
"I think I'll save suicide for another year...."
This record has one of the most gut-churning foreshadowings in indie-folk but it's a ... read more
1 | The Modern Leper 3:48 | 91 |
2 | I Feel Better 2:51 | 85 |
3 | Good Arms vs. Bad Arms 5:07 | 87 |
4 | Fast Blood 3:47 | 83 |
5 | Old Old Fashioned 3:43 | 81 |
6 | The Twist 3:31 | 82 |
7 | Bright Pink Bookmark 1:13 | 75 |
8 | Head Rolls Off 3:44 | 86 |
9 | My Backwards Walk 3:30 | 84 |
10 | Keep Yourself Warm 5:33 | 85 |
11 | Extrasupervery 1:18 | 76 |
12 | Poke 4:36 | 81 |
13 | Floating in the Forth 4:14 | 81 |
14 | Who'd You Kill Now? 1:05 | 75 |
#2 | / | Drowned in Sound |
#20 | / | A.V. Club |
#33 | / | Pitchfork |
#36 | / | NME |
#100 | / | Consequence of Sound |