Shave and a hair cut: two bitsThese guys should have named themselves Your Girlfriend's New Favorite Band, because that's what they're gunning for, and their initial choice, Frightened Rabbit, is a Hall of Fame shitty band name. Basically, like a lot of these groups, Frightened Rabbit layer a little bit of quirk – Scottish accents, occasional earnest expletive in a chorus ("It takes more than fucking someone to keep yourself warm"), anachronistic references (they have a song called "Old Old Fashion", not to put too fine a point on it) – on top of the same U2-by-numbers that underlie Snow Patrol or Coldplay. It's the aural equivalent of wrapping your dog's heartworm medication in a piece of baloney so she'll eat it.
So the real question is: did I enjoy their album, Midnight Organ Fright, more than Viva La Vida? Well, Coldplay are at an advantage, freely admitting to world-beating aspirations (Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People is their fucking album cover for crissakes), whereas Frightened Rabbit from the name on down seem to be under the impression that they can con sensitive frat dudes and their dudettes into thinking they make bedroom pop, which they do if you happen to sleep in Madison Square Garden. Coldplay have progressed beyond communicating human emotions to rally-ready sloganeering, which is great rock and roll fun if you prefer Hannah Arendt to Elvis Presley. Frightened Rabbit still communicate human emotions, but not the kind real people have, at least not regularly; rather they convey the types of complex, grandiose Emotions that, in reality, are only regularly expressed in real life by someone sitting next to you on a packed commuter train into their cell-phone. FR fill the same workaday Wagner role as U2: if you ever want to feel truly self-conscious about the gap between your interior life and the genuine article, think about it the next time you are listening to "Where the Streets Have No Name" on your iPod while waiting in line at Starbucks.
So the real question is: did I enjoy their album, Midnight Organ Fright, more than Viva La Vida? Well, Coldplay are at an advantage, freely admitting to world-beating aspirations (Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People is their fucking album cover for crissakes), whereas Frightened Rabbit from the name on down seem to be under the impression that they can con sensitive frat dudes and their dudettes into thinking they make bedroom pop, which they do if you happen to sleep in Madison Square Garden. Coldplay have progressed beyond communicating human emotions to rally-ready sloganeering, which is great rock and roll fun if you prefer Hannah Arendt to Elvis Presley. Frightened Rabbit still communicate human emotions, but not the kind real people have, at least not regularly; rather they convey the types of complex, grandiose Emotions that, in reality, are only regularly expressed in real life by someone sitting next to you on a packed commuter train into their cell-phone. FR fill the same workaday Wagner role as U2: if you ever want to feel truly self-conscious about the gap between your interior life and the genuine article, think about it the next time you are listening to "Where the Streets Have No Name" on your iPod while waiting in line at Starbucks.
