More about: Frightened Rabbit

We don't know if we've given you the impression yet, but we really like Frightened Rabbit, and their incredible new album Painting Of A Panic Attack. We've gone on about it quite a lot, and with good reason, so we thought who'd better to review the record than frontman Scott Hutchison himself? 

So far as part of our Frightened Rabbit takeover, we've had:

- An in-depth chat with Scott Hutchison opening up about heartache, recovery, The National and the trouble with Miles Kane

- Scott talking us through his favourite music, books and TV (including a desire to go on Bake Off) 

- Drummer and brother Grant gave us his guide to the finest pubs for a pint in Glasgow. 

Now, we hand you back over to 'Hypocritical Shitter' Scott, to talk us through the album...

'Death Dream'
"I don't care about other people's dreams. The possibilities are limitless therefore I CANNOT BE SURPRISED BY WHAT HAPPENED IN YOUR DREAM. But bear with me whilst I write an entire fucking song about one of mine. What a hypocritical shitter I am. You can have Hypocritical Shitter for your next band name, by the way. This dream was different though. It was just so well directed and strikingly beautiful. The camerawork was positively Hitchcockian. When the imagery is already laid out on a plate (or the floor) for you, well, you should make lemonade with it. Drink up, buddy."

'Get Out'
"This one took very little time to come together. "We know!" I hear you cry, "it's an absolute abomination of a song!" To that I would say to you, "Sir/Madam, please find another corner of the internet to darken with your turdy quips!" But really, it was a very quick process apart from the DAYS I spent trying to find something more erudite to sing in the choruses. I couldn't find anything, and that's probably because the right thing just came out of my stupid mouth the first time round. Sometimes you shouldn't ask toooo many questions of a song."

'I Wish I Was Sober'
"I mean, do we really need to go into this one? Read the title. 34 years old and I've still not learned anything from 17 years of fairly regular alcohol consumption other than, "I like drinking but sometimes it hurts." Whenever it gets dark, it's totally my fault that it does. There's no heroism in this, it's fucking pathetic. Don't even bother listening to this song. And don't look at me, I'm hideous!"

'Woke Up Hurting'
"Seemed like the natural place to go after the last number. This is the dancefloor filler, one to get the disco kids bopping like penguins at a seal fight. But wait! This jolly tune just happens to be about a desperate human who prays every day that aliens will come and take him to another planet. You know that feeling where you think an intrusive alien probe-rod would be better than one more second on this stupid earth? Yeah, me too."

'Little Drum'
"This one was us channelling our inner Elbow. I actually went so far as to imagine Guy Garvey's voice singing the words whilst I was writing the lyrics. They sounded a lot better in a Manc accent than they do in my Borders brogue. Speaking of which, this song is about growing up in Selkirk, a small town in the south east of Scotland. Nothing much happened there, but that's all changed now because the train runs to fucking TWEEDBANK! Selkirk is now a roaring metropolis."

'Still Want To Be Here'
"This one is not about Selkirk. But it could be about Selkirk if you happened to live in Selkirk with someone you adored, but you couldn't get past the fact that even though you love being with this person you still didn't really love living in Selkirk but then you thought "you know what I'll stay in Selkirk because this person is great so yeah I'll just stay even though I don't like this town much I'll stick around yeah." Please replace the word "Selkirk" with any town you have lived in and were not fond of. For the record, I absolutely love Selkirk! Just look at how many times I've written it in the last few sentences!"

'An Otherwise Disappointing Life'
"This one almost didn't make it on to the album but one or two of us stuck up for it and I'm glad we did. Much like Get Out, this one didn't change an enormous amount from demo to album version, aside from the middle 8 which arrived from Glasgow like Peter Hook out of his MIND on a stag weekend. This might be the least insightful track by track you've ever read, but I really think if I define these songs too clearly before you've even listened properly it could ruin it for you. Like reading a book after you've seen the film. Anyway, lets crack on..."

'Break'
"This one really benefitted from Dessner's now dismantled garage studio. Whilst we were upstate at Dreamland, Aaron would wax lyrical about the magic of The Garage and we didn't quite believe him, but he was right. There was something pretty great about that little room and you could really work up a sweat, particularly in the middle of a ballz hot New York summer. So, this is quite literally our finest "garage rock" since Sing The Greys, which was also recorded in a garage. What happened to keeping cars in those things?"

'Blood Under The Bridge'
"You know, like water under the bridge but a lot more moody and serious. That's how this songwriting lark works, you see. Take a common phrase or a widely known idiom and flip the fucker on its head. That's all there is to it! The music for song was pretty much entirely written in Glasgow by the rest of the band, which made my job EVEN EASIER! As if it wasn't simple enough to just replace the word "water" with "blood", I didn't even have to do any of the instruments either! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha this is great fun."

'400 Bones'
"Well now this one should really be called 412 Bones because there are apparently 206 bones in the human body. So if you then multiply that human body by two and you have two human bodies in that there bed. Maybe this is the closest I've come to romance within a song. I hope this balances out some of the less pretty moments I've described on the album. These afternoons indoors mean a lot to me."

'Lump Street'
"This song has one foot in our future and one in our past. The first half is perhaps our biggest departure yet from the auld rock music, but during the second half we were allowed to let fly. In the studio, it was almost like some kids had been let off the leash. Aaron instructed Grant, Billy and I to rattle through the outro together in one take. That's pretty much how FR started out; the three of us playing fast and loud. After the take, we all came back in to the control room grinning away. To be able to play like that on this song was really special for me."

'Die Like A Rich Boy'
"This was a surprise late contender. We did not fuck with it. The guitar track was brought over from the demo, which was recorded at the kitchen table in a cabin up near Big Bear Lake in California. Sometimes you can overthink music, and although it's important to put a great deal of thought into what you do, some things don't benefit from a lot of tinkering. To me, this album is the right blend of clever and stupid. Maybe stupid is the wrong word... instinctive might be more appropriate. When something felt good, we allowed it to just be what it was without asking too many questions. When something wasn't quite right, we wrestled with it for days. This is what we ended up with. I hope you enjoy listening to it."

Frightened Rabbit release their epic new album, Painting Of A Panic Attack on 8 April. Their upcoming UK tour dates are as follows, with tickets on sale here. 

Frightened Rabbit will play:
Tue April 12 2016 - MANCHESTER Academy 2
Wed April 13 2016 - DUNFERMLINE Alhambra
Thu April 14 2016 - LONDON St John At Hackney Church

More about: Frightened Rabbit