All hail second albums

Image: wondercabinet

I Feel Better - Frightened Rabbit

I didn't really see it before, comparisons to fellow Scots, The Twilight Sad. But now that Frightened Rabbit has traded their small-scale art songs for broad mural-scope anthems with dramatic instrumental builds, the points of convergence are coming into focus. The band's lyrical pessimism and Scott Hutchison's mournful voice works both in scrappy and -- on the new album The Midnight Organ Fight -- ambitious modes. So whether you'll like the new album better or worse than Sings the Greys is probably going to be an aesthetic, not a critical, choice. I'm a little leery about a few Coldplay-falsetto moments, but there are plenty of awesome, ultra-catchy tracks here like "Modern Leper" (I posted a live version last year), "Good Arms vs. Bad Arms," "Floating in the Forth" and "I Feel Better." The last works in sort of a"You're So Vain" vein. Hutchison promises "This is the last song I ever sing about you," but the way he chants "I feel better and better" like he's shredding the sofa with his teeth, suggests otherwise.

Previous posts on Frightened Rabbit here, here, here, here and here. Buy The Midnight Organ Fight (Amazon), Myspace.