Cougar Microbes

Frightened Rabbit returned to the fore in 2010 with the release of ‘The Winter Of Mixed Drinks‘ and bagged themselves spots not only on our full site top album breakdown but several writers personal lists (which will be published soon).

Here is why Cougar scribe Ruby deemed it worthy of a spot:

After the warm reception of ‘The Greys’ and ‘Midnight Organ Fight’ the pressure may have been on to pull yet another Frightened Rabbit out the hat.  And it is with great satisfaction that I can reveal that those scruffy haired Scots did the rabbit and the hat trick with their latest offering.

‘The Winter Of Mixed Drinks’ also saw a step away from subdued shadows of their former albums and generally provided us with a more brash and attention grabbing sound. The band have added more heart, more guts and more build than ever seen before.

Fan’s shouldn’t be disappointed as there are still plenty of nods to their staple sound; somehow FR manage to straddle the thin line between hope and horror. Yet despite this there is a notably richer and more radiant sound suggesting that things are looking a lot less miserable now for the likely lads whose efforts this year have handed them a place in my personal list.

When we reviewed the album back in april Kenny suggested that “what sets ‘The Winter of Mixed Drinks’ apart from previous Frightened Rabbit albums is a sense of heightened focus“. In his year end list he added:

I’m a big fan of Frightened Rabbit‘s previous albums but their 2010 offering is a different beast. This is a brilliantly crafted and contemplative album filled with great instrumentation. It is mature yet exhilerating; epic yet subtle. When I heard it — even early in the year — I knew it would be on this list.

TRACKS:

NEXT: #18 Cougar Microbes Top Albums of 2010: Gregory and The Hawk – Leche

PREVIOUS: #20 Cougar Microbes Top Albums of 2010: Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles (II)

Cougar Microbes caught up with the members of Maps & Atlases munching on a vegetarian platter hours before they were due on stage at Cargo.  We discussed sweaty clothes, Cee Lo Green and scary songs:

- Cougar Microbes – So to start off; what time did you guys get out of bed this morning?

- Maps & Atlases – We got up at 8:30.

- CM - 8:30? Was that out of choice or where you dragged out of bed?

- M&A – Well we had to get down to London from Manchester so it was kind of like we dragged ourselves out of bed.

- CM – How do you guys kill time on the road? Do you play games?

- M&A – We had a couple of fun games. We used to have games, now we just don’t talk (laughs). Fortunately there’s lots of scenery to take in.

- CM - And the great weather?

M&A – Of course your great weather!

CM – What have been your favourite venues on this UK tour?

M&A – We really liked the venue from last night, Manchester Deaf Institute was really cool, and Glasgow just looked awesome as a city.

CM – Any absolutely shocking venues?

M&A- Actually, kind of funny you bring that up… they were mostly good.

CM – We like to name and shame

M&A – All our shows have been good experiences…. but it got so packed at our Brighton show and it got extremely hot, the air conditioning wasn’t working… people were passing out, literally. We nearly passed out. It was pretty bad.

The clothes we have from that show are still wet.

CM – Are there any tracks in the set you are sick of playing?

M&A – Not yet but probably by the end of this tour (laughs).

CM – And what’s your favourite?

M&A – You know, I think ‘Pigeon’ is a fun one to play it’s got all these things that could go wrong so it is just scary enough to be exciting every time. Its high energy but it has a good root to it. It’s pretty easy to mess it up but it is so great to play.

CM – Are you guys able to write on the road?

M&A – I guess writing lyrics can happen any time, but we don’t necessarily as you would imagine. I guess sometimes we will have a 2 minute jam on the side of the soundcheck but for the most part when you are playing live you don’t wanna be pissing off the sound guys.

CM – Whats more important for you, the lyrics or the melody?

M&A – Hopefully there is a balance between both. I think the lyrics are important to give a sense to the songs you are singing but without the melody tying it together its not really worth anything. I guess if i had to chose one Lyrics would be slightly more important.

I mean look at Cake, who are a fantastic band, and notice how they emphasise the lyrics whilst he almost talks over it.

CM – and says ‘Oh no’ a lot of times…

M&A – Exactly!

CM – You guys have toured with Ra Ra Riot, mewithoutyou and Minus the Bear, who would you like to tour with again

M&A – We did a few shows with Rar Ra Riot and those were fun and we did some with Foals which we also enjoyed. Really any of those tours we’d love to do again.

I’d like to do Frightened Rabbit again. There aren’t too many bands that we’ve toured with that we disliked.

CM – What is the most flattering thing you’ve read or heard about yourselves?

M&A – I really like some of the comparisons we get all the time. we are one of these bands that always gets oddball comparisons. People are like “yeah you sound like Talking Heads and… Prince” and I’m just thinking yeah, I guess thats pretty awesome. We’ll take that.

The other day Dave was compared to Cee Lo which made us laugh.

CM – Which other bands are doing stuff that you like at the moment?

M&A – I like Phantogram a lot, Wild Beasts came out a while ago but that was an awesome album, a band that is coming out soon called Gypsyblood will be pretty awesome.

CM – When was the last time you queued up and paid for a show?

M&A - I just got tickets to Dismemberment Plan in Chicago, hopefully I wont have to queue. I got tickets for a Thermals show last year and didn’t really have to wait in line for very long. Not because I’m a rockstar or anything, just that I got there at the right time.

CM – Are there any covers you are planning to record or have recorded?

M&A – We are always trying to think of an awesome cover we could play.

CM – You could do Cee Lo?

M&A – Now that’s an awesome idea… We were actually working on a couple of songs earlier in the tour like an Echo & The Bunnymen track.

CM – Final question, if you have to bring an artist back from the dead and swap them with a living artist who would it be and why?

M&A – We’d probably wanna bring someone back whose career has been cut short like Buddy Holly or someone like that. Someone who was unfortunate to die but fortunate for their career to go that way.

I say we bring back Buddy Holly. Swap them with someone like Puddle of Mudd. In fact you don’t even have to bring anyone back, just take that band away.

The album ‘Perch Patchwork‘ is out now on FatCat.

TRACKS:

With just a handful of tracks in my possession I think it is fair to say Oscar Charlie have kept me guessing since I first heard them at the start of this year. Hailing from the Shetland Isles, but recently relocated to Glasgow, the band’s synth heavy songs weren’t what I was expecting when I first checked them out.

Sounding positively brooding and taking the quiet/loud mantle from their contemporaries the band  mix elements from Editors as well as fellow scots Copy Haho, Idlewild and Frightened Rabbit.

in just a few tracks Oscar Charlie display a load of promise and a tendency to build layer upon layer of melodious sound.With a single just released and an EP due at the start of June I would recommend keeping tabs on this lot.

TRACKS:

Oscar Charlie – Hello Chrono

Frightened Rabbit came to my attention back in December with a blistering set opening for Modest Mouse at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. I should, perhaps, have had my eye on them much earlier. Nevertheless, they have eased into the public eye after the release of second album ‘The Midnight Organ Fight’ and an impressive performance on BBC2’s The Culture Show last year. March saw the jock’n’rollers release their third album, a milestone which more celebrated acts from The Strokes to Razorlight have struggled with in recent years.

Thankfully ‘The Winter of Mixed Drinks’ serves up pretty much exactly what the doctor ordered; familiar melancholic undertones and plenty of fresh ideas. We’re talking handclaps, vocal intros, shakers, choral arrangements and much, much more. The album moves thematically, from ‘The Midnight Organ Fight’s self deprecating Romeo, to apprehensive adventurer. First single ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’ is an ode to [metaphorically] throwing everything at one’s ambition and crucially overcoming the crippling fear of failure. Rousing stuff indeed.

Frightened Rabbit’s releases are always packed with build-ups. However, more often than not the ex-Glasgow School of Art students resist the temptation to break into the anticipated anthem, preferring instead to opt for the unexpected. It is, to a certain extent, what makes them such an exciting act and is a strategy they persist with on this latest offering. The most notable examples are opener ‘Things’, ‘The Loneliness and The Scream’ and ‘Not Miserable’.

What sets ‘The Winter of Mixed Drinks’ apart from previous Frightened Rabbit albums is a sense of heightened focus. There is a more ruthless approach to track selection with only ten full length songs making the final release. Themes are introduced and reintroduced, lending a feeling of completeness perhaps lacking in earlier efforts.

Almost as much a folk group as they are a rock group, Frightened Rabbit are one of the most exciting Scottish exports since Irn-Bru.

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Post written by Kenny the malefic.

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TRACKS:

Frightened Rabbit – Fun Stuff

Shepherd’s Bush Empire’s boiler seems to have packed in on this mid-December evening as support act Frightened Rabbit amble onto a cluttered stage, tasked with quite literally warming the crowd up for headliners Modest Mouse.

As punters trickle in the five-piece set about their assignment with an impressive degree of aplomb. Their melodic merging of pop sensibilities with rock attitude is reminiscent of a Scottish Jimmy Eat World in their underexposed Capitol Records days. The captivating dynamics of Scott Hutchinson’s vocals, showcased on the brilliant ‘Keep Yourself Warm’, and the inventive, understated rhythms of brother and drummer Grant are tied together by multi-instrumentalist shoe gazers Billy, Andy and Gordon. Closer ‘Square 9’ sees Grant finally off the leash as the rest of the band leave him on stage to end the set and throw his sticks in the air with a victorious roar. The near-full venue roars back with approval and the gauntlet lies at the feet of their more experienced peers from across the Atlantic.

Modest Mouse open with ‘King Rat‘, the B-side for 2007’s Dashboard recently reborn as a video directed by the late Heath Ledger. The upbeat banjo groove has the younger audience members bopping away beneath our comfy level-1 seats. Singer Isaac Brock apologises early on for throat troubles that sadly limit his vocal range tonight. Though this is an unfortunate feature of this evening’s Modest Mouse performance it undoubtedly improves the further they delve into an impressive back catalogue of material spanning 15 years.

More liable for an apology is the sound engineer for disappointing unbalanced sound throughout the majority of the Issaquah outfit’s set. It is habitual for headliners to be louder than supporting acts; however, certain frequencies approach deafening levels at times tonight. It is a real shame because Modest Mouse carry out their work admirably, projecting real enthusiasm for what they do. On the hyper-speedy ‘We’ve Got Everything’, the enthusiasm borders on over-exuberance, however, most other favourites from ‘Dashboard’ to ‘Bukowski’ are performed almost flawlessly. Dual drummers Plummer and Green locking in and bouncing off each other are a must see. Thankfully, by the time the boys return for their encore the sound has finally been balanced out allowing a smoother transfer of energy from the band to their audience leaving the fans thirsty for more including the surprisingly omitted ‘Float On’.

Ultimately Modest Mouse’s collective character shines through admirably on what evidently turns out to be a harder than desired evening of work. I look forward to seeing them the next time they are in town by which time hopefully Isaac will have had a few cups of lemon tea.

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Review by Kenny the Omnipotent

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TRACK:

Modest Mouse – The Good Times Are Killing Me