Frightened Rabbit- Quietly Now (live)
6/10

A live album from Frightened Rabbit, mmm, this is a bit of an acoustic mess. Believe it or not it comes across in parts as quite an aggressive performance, with some rather abrasive guitar playing and a ramshackle mix of jingles, bells and cymbals. And when the quartet’s Scottish accents come together they sometimes don’t work in unison, fading in and out of time like a bloated step-father poisoning himself with a can of frozen tuna. It’s hard to get a fair representation of the band from this live record; to me Frightened Rabbit sits in the same booth as the The Shins, Okkervil River and may perhaps even be joined by Idlewild; but then there’s this strange acoustic folk thing that doesn’t really fit with any of those bands. That’s probably a good thing, because Frightened Rabbit have the ability to adapt to different situations. Their louder up-tempo indie pop stuff works well to the right audience, as does their acoustic folk stuff, problem is they’re not the same audience. It’s unfortunate because they obviously mix the two, which makes all so very confusing. It’s very difficult to get comfortable listening to this album because the pace changes so often.  Individually there’s some beautiful tracks, ‘Fast Blood’ is a lovely acoustic camp-fire song; Scott Hutchison’s acute vocals tip-toe down a finely paved road drenched in moonlight. ‘Poke’ is another peaceful folk ballad; a story of heartbreak, expressing deep pain in pining after a lost lover. It’s a touching song with lyrics that will bring a tear to your eye. In contrast, ‘The Modern Leper’ has a heavy acoustic wallow that threatens to give Eddy Vedder another unforgivable ‘influence’ medal. ‘Old Old Fashioned’ is an alt-country ballad done with a Scottish accent, it’s not bad, but it’s nothing special either. If you pick this album to pieces you’ll find some really good songs mixed in with some pretty average ones. The good ones tend to be the slower folk songs, where Hutchison’s story-telling can be fully embraced and enjoyed without the overbearing bash of guitars and percussion.
Nick

 

Posted by Nick Fulton under Album, Reviews
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