[Review] [Listen] – Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight (2008)

Album number two.  Many artists have flushed their entire career down the shitter with album number two. Many artists have found a new lease of life, many reinvent themselves, many drop off the radar and many are put on the radar.  With Frightened Rabbit’s album number two “The Midnight Organ Fight”, they firmly put themselves on the radar, creating one of the best and most heartbreaking albums of the last decade.

When their debut album “Sing The Greys” was released in 2006 it took a little while before people started paying attention to them, but they kept on keptin’ on and it paid off, finally getting some recognition for an album that many bands would kill to be able to make. They re-released it in late 2007 on FatCat and they began to really build a following, so when they released “The Midnight Organ Fight” in April 2008, six months after their reissue, a few people were skeptical, worrying that it might be too rushed and fall short of personal and honest tone set by “Sing The Greys”.  When you listen to “The Midnight Organ Fight” you get so much more.  So much more honesty, more personal stories, strained voices, heartfelt words and crack-like addicting melodies.  Album opener “The Modern Leper” is an instant classic about holding onto love even though that love is trying to get you to stop holding onto it’s leg.  The lyrics are brutally honest and awkard as singer Scott desperately tries to hold on to whatever strand of love is left: “Well, is that you in front of me?/Coming back for even more of exactly the same/You must be a masochist to love a modern leper/On his last leg”.

The recurring theme through this album is heartbreak, lost loves, the end of relationships, lonliness, breakups all told through a unique and distinctive storytelling.  ”I Feel Better”, the album’s second track, is a sequal to “Snake”, the last song on “Sing The Greys”, showcasing their ability to create music that is at once all over the place yet completely held together.  It’s a fast-paced ramshackle of a song that is not only touching, Scott sometimes playing catchup to the guitar, running through words just to get to the chorus in time.  The unstructured nature of the song is what keeps you focused on where it’s going, unsure which turn it’s about to take.”Good Arms vs Bad Arms” is a country-sounding ballad, clearly about an ex finding love elsewhere.  The infectious two-part harmonising will be stuck in your head for days without you even realising it and you can’t help but feel for Scott as he takes the song out: “And leave the rest at arm’s length/Just roll over boy and don’t make me do this/And leave the rest at arm’s length/I am armed to the teeth and I’m heavy set/And leave the rest at arm’s length/I’m not ready to see you this happy/And leave the rest at arm’s length/I’m still in love with you (can’t admit it yet)”.  ”Fast Blood” is instantly darker and jittery with heavy drums and contemplative concrete guitars, Scott sublimely breaking his voice as he croons about drinking and shagging.  With “Old Old Fashioned” it lives up to its name, an elegant indie-folk-pop singalong that calls for the lack of technology and a desire to get “Back to how things used to be”, you’ll be left stomping your feet and bobbing your head. On an album of otherwise melancholic and sad songs, this is the sun to the rest of the album’s night.

“The Twist” brings despair and a need for “human heat”, opening with a piano riff, accompanied by pointed and determined guitars and drums, Scott telling us that he doesn’t care if the woman says the wrong name, he just wants to get laid, while “Head Rolls Off” is possibly the best song on the album.  A huge poignent anthem that touches on faith “Jesus, is just a Spanish boy’s name/ How come one man got so much fame?/To enemy it’s pointless to anybody/That doesn’t have faith”, death “When it’s all gone/Something carries on/And it’s not morbid at all/Just when nature’s had enough of you”, and our complete insignifcance in the world “While I’m alive, I’ll make tiny changes to earth”.  ”My Backwards Walk” is also possibly the best song on the album (with so many it’s difficult to choose just one) with one of the most witty and catchy lyrics you’ll hear this side of the Moon “You’re the shit and I’m knee-deep in it”. There are no drums in “My Backwards Walk” until the last thirty seconds which give you three full minutes of complete immersion in the words sang (if you’ve ever been in love), and Scott’s warbling voice adds the conviction you need to just breakdown if you need to, “I been working on my backwards walk/There’s nowhere else for me to go/Except back to you just one last time/Say yes before I change my mind”.

“Keep Yourself Warm” is a swift and wailing, bitter look at casual sex “It takes more than fucking someone you don’t know to keep yourself warm” and “Poke” has it’s roots set firmly in balladic Indie-Folk, soft, melodious, and infinitely lonely: “I might never catch a mouse and present it in my mouth/And make you feel you’re with someone who deserves to be with you/But there’s one thing we’ve got going and it’s the only thing worth knowing/It’s got lots to do with magnets and the pull of the moon”. On “Floating In The Forth” we have what is probably the best song on the album.  Maybe I relate to it more as Scott sings about foating away down the Forth, to the sea, the area I grew up in, but the words are sung in such an honest and gut-wrenching manner that’s both clever and heavy-hearted that they once again leave you feeling incredibly sorry for the guy.  ”So you just stepped out of the 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 collapsed/And the eyes rolled back to stare at my starving brain”. As the song builds up to its 4:14 ending, Scott (somewhat begrudgingly, but thankfully) tells us he’ll save suicide for another day, and then another year, ending the song on a hopeful and unapologetic note.

“The Midnight Organ Fight” is a true modern-day classic.  It took everyone (but the band themselves) by surprise, having not only bettered “Sing The Greys” but having arguably the best album of the year and one of the best of the decade.  As stated several times already, it’s difficult to not relate to Frightened Rabbit’s uniquely honest and clever song-crafting.   This album is a masterpiece and you’d only be doing yourself a disservice by not listening to it.  Before you know it you’ve cried, laughed, contemplated life and death, danced, mourned the loss of a love and gotten over an ex.  And that’s just the first seven songs.

9.5/10

Worth checking out: We Were Promised Jetpacks, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Twilight Sad.

Buy “The Midnight Organ Fight” / Download “The Midnight Organ Fight”

“Listen Before You Buy – The Midnight Organ Fight”