Having shifted wearily home from The Crazy Horse at some ungodly hour in the morning, today’s early start is only made bearable by an opening performance from Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan.

The stale smell of beer and hotdogs populates the air in the dimly lit hall as the duo take to the stage. Best known for her time as cellist and vocalist with Belle & Sebastian, Campbell’s crisp and sweet vocals soar above Lanegan’s grunge soaked low, croaking timbre. An unlikely pairing, the partnership between the two was forged early in 2004 and has lasted for three atmospheric, retro-tinged Americana-folk albums.

The perfect antidote to the morning’s hangover, Lanegan’s gruff voice wraps around the gentle, sultry coos of Campbell in the gently rumbling melody of early track ‘Ballad of the Broken Seas.’ Taken from their most recent collaborative effort Hawk, ‘You Won’t Let Me Down Again’ shakes the performance from its lull as the electric guitar’s classic twang rolls out and directs the spotlight on Lanegan’s rough, dusty baritone. Classic romantic indie pop melodies jostle against low bass tremors, the sharp rills of the guitar and the vibrating cello strings. Tambourine zils jingle against the terribly off-kilter mini-clap-along in the crowd. Campbell looks irritated whilst the keyboardist encourages the young man leading the clap-along, who is currently dancing like he’s at an illegal rave. As 2008’s ‘Something to Believe’ rings out, the brooding beauty of their soundscape really does re-call the late 1960s sombre, orchestral pop of the iconic Lee Hazelwood/Nancy Sinatra variety.

As beautiful as the pair’s back catalogue is, Campbell’s performance becomes slightly dry and tedious towards the end, so it is with giddy excitement that I trundle downstairs for Frightened Rabbit. Having released the stunning The Winter of Mixed Drinks this year it is easy to forget that the Selkirk five-piece have been existed in various forms since 2006’s Sing The Greys album on local Glasgow label Hits The Fan. The Midnight Organ Fight is, for me, one of the most consistently epic and emotionally fraught releases of the past few years so needless to say my trundling is actually somewhat urgent.

Stepping out 15 minutes early, Billy Kennedy’s crisp guitar and Grant Hutchinson’s crackling snare drum reverberate around a surreal, empty room. The cold air of the pavilion wakes me up as the opening chords of ‘The Modern Leper’ expose the vulnerability of frontman Scott Hutchinson and the raw honesty of his song writing. As insistent guitar strokes and drums build from a soft shimmer to a thunderous crash the acoustics swell beneath lyrics riddled with a real bitter self-loathing. The percussion thuds with an incredible ferocity, as Scott’s stentorian, husky howls draw out the veins on his forehead as the band play a set that includes ‘Old Old Fashioned’ ‘Keep Yourself Warm’ and ‘Head Rolls Off.’

‘Backwards Walk’ sees Scott’s aching, quivering voice ring out over a muted ambience that genuinely sends a chill down my spine. Investing his emotions so entirely in each song, it is almost harrowing to watch a man seem to fall so completely apart on stage. Left to perform ‘Good Arms vs. Bad Arms’ alone, the Scottish frontman, drenched in sweat underneath he blazing purple lights, gently strums his acoustic guitar, brimming with an aching honesty. Sipping on beer and whisky he struggles with the upper registers but manages to find enough of a voice left to say “This is kind of Frightened Rabbit’s Christmas Party, it is the last leg of our tour so thanks a lot for being here. Also this is our first ATP ever, even as punters so it’s pretty fucking exciting. It’s just an honour to be asked by Belle & Sebastian.” At once inspiring and heart breaking, Frightened Rabbit’s performance this afternoon is quite simply breath taking.

Up next is another Scottish artist, although one of a more legendary ilk, Edwyn Collins. With the “amateur” Teenage Fanclub posing as backing band du-jour, the section of Collins’ set that I catch focuses largely on Orange Juice era songs such as ‘Consolation Prize.’ Having recently re-learned to think, walk and talk before penning this years’ Losing Sleep the fey, jangly pop of Collins’ performance is as shimmering as it could be. His post-punk sensibilities still bubble below the surface with an endearing optimism and when Alex Kapranos joins him for 1994’s ‘A Girl Like You’ it’s a pretty magical moment; one only topped by a Teenage Fanclub announced encore of ‘Blueboy.’

Catching up with Dean Wareham’s tour of Galaxie 500 songs, the singer admits that having played the original Bowlie, he found himself driving to Camber Sands on his way here. Flooded in a blue haze his warped psychedelic guitar and sweeping instrumentals are punctuated by an incredibly moving, ethereal voice before we head downstairs for Wild Beasts.

The Mercury Prize nominated four-piece take to the stage amidst the pounding bass lines, crackling percussion, soaring keys and low murmuring choral vocals of ‘All The King’s Men’ before the high pitched refrain of “Watch me/Watch me” grates against minimal instrumentation. Having “escaped the trauma of Butlins as kids” the band admit that now they’re here they “love it.” Hayden’s falsetto voice rings out against chiming synths as the band playfully make their way through an incredible set that includes ‘Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants’, ‘Hooting & Howling’, ‘The Devil’s Crayon’ and ‘We Still Got The Taste Dancin’ On Our Tongues.’ For all their intellectual posturing and strikingly serious ethereal harmonies Wild Beasts’ output is often flirtatious and genuinely amusing, especially when it comes to the opening “This is a booty call!” cry of ‘The Fun Powder Plot.’

Catching up with Field Music’s David Brewis ahead of his performance this afternoon he admits that he’s never been to an ATP before “partly due to the fact that both of the venues, both Camber Sands and here, are an incredible trek from the North East.” Having been asked to perform this weekend by Richard Colburn, David does say that it is absolutely “lovely to be here, and to have that personal element to the festival.” Responding to questions of what ATP means to him, David explains that “the way ATP do things and the consistent quality of events they put on is really admirable, especially at a time when its easy to make a lot of money out of gigs that aren’t very good. They have resisted the urge to do so and have created something that real music fans really want to go to. The more stuff they do, the better.”

Having released their semi-eponymous third album Field Music (Measure) in February, David and his brother Peter’s intellectual post-punk revivalism is punctuated with a wry humour and subtle sense of despair. Creative and witty, their performance this afternoon is haunting and understated. It doesn’t make for the most accessible, infectious set of pop harmonies but the gentle blues motifs and subtle poetry of songs like ‘In The Kitchen’ and ‘Tones of Towns’ draw a discerning, older crowd with their eccentric, quintessentially British sensibility.

With a confident air Dirty Projector’s David Longstreth soon swaggers on stage. With torn jeans and limp hair hanging down over his face he looks as though he could be part of the recent grunge revival. However, as the intricate guitar lines, and complex vocal harmonies from Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian soar above the sinuous instrumental textures it is quite clear that Dirty Projectors soundscape steers well clear of grunge in it’s art-rock experimentations.  When they play ‘I Will Truck’ from 2005’s The Getty Address, the call and response bass and guitar rumble below gliding saccharine vocals.

Listening to last year’s Bitte Orca on repeat in the car on the journey down here provides some insight into the enchanting, jarring musical juxtapositions and ever-changing time signatures of their performance. Fusing dream-pop synth keys and howling guitars, the band effortless offer up the most interesting and experimental soundscape of the weekend. Marrying the romanticism of Nico-esque vocals with the obscure, affected, haunting layered vocals, muscular drumming and shimmering symbols on tracks such as ‘Stillness Is The Move’, ‘Two Doves’, ‘Knotty Pine’ and ‘Temecula Sunrise’ the Brooklyn based six piece are truly incredible.

The crowd thins out as a large section head to see The New Pornographers before Belle & Sebastian take up their headline slot. I stay put and weave my way to the front amidst an increasingly excited crowd. “I love you Bowlies” Stuart Murdoch cries over the opening percussion crashes of Write About Love’s ‘I Didn’t See It Coming.’ The Glasgow chamber pop group “troll through the ages of Belle & Sebastian” to bring us ‘A Century of Fakers’ from their third EP. My jaw hurts so much from smiling as the guitars jangle underneath Murdoch’s smooth, fey vocals.

The euphoric violin strings of ‘If You’re Feeling Sinister’ punctuate the rustic acoustic guitars whilst an orange glow populates the choral crescendo and famous, subtly infectious riff. With uniquely warm voices their performance of ‘The Stars of Track and Field’ is tear jerking: the entire crowd singing along. As Murdoch drags a handful of men and women on stage to dance with the band during what is undoubtedly their most famous number ‘The Boy With The Arab Strap.’ As the flashing lights die down to ‘Judy And The Dream of Horses’ the sense of jubilation in the air is really infectious and just completely spell binding.

It is pretty clear that nothing today has left to offer can top that most mesmerising of performances, a point that could not be more clearly proven by Jenny and Johnny’s tiresome, disappointing selections of songs. The kitsch vocals of Jenny Lewis are as beautiful as ever but the duelling crooning refrains of Johnathan Rice are uninspiring, as is the faux sincerity behind them.

Sticking around for the abrasive, harsh, synthetic and dark brooding electronica of Crystal Castles the night’s line-up picks back up again. Shrouded in a white cloud of smoke, their somewhat obnoxious melodies are embellished with flourishing synthesisers, infectious dance driven rhythms and Le Tigre esque howls from enigmatic front woman Alice Glass, who shortly dives into the crowd. More dynamic than on record, the Toronto duo provide a perfectly contagious, riotous ending to Saturday’s traditional indie line up.


Isobel Campbell

Frightened Rabbit

Edwyn Collins

Field Music

Dirty Projectors

Crystal Castles

Every day from now until Christmas, our friend’s over at Bandstand Busking will be releasing previously unseen footage from the incredible array of musicians that have played London’s bandstands over the past six months, come rain or shine.

Taking a break for the winter to ready themselves for the spring Bandstand Busking have lined up 25 days of musical treats from Frightened Rabbit and Sam Amidon to Hundred In The Hands and Slow Club.

Kick starting the festive season today’s video features the gentle folk of The Tailors.

Click here to view the embedded video.

To take a peak behind the advent calendar doors every day check out their website.

Frightened Rabbit have scheduled a string of winter UK dates to take place in November and December later this year.

November
20 – Anson Rooms, Bristol
21 – Academy 2, Manchester
22 – Northumbria University Stage 2, Newcastle
24 – Sugarmill, Stoke
25 – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
26 – Phoenix Theatre, Exeter
27 – Komedia, Brighton
29 – The Cockpit, Leeds
30 – The Slade Rooms, Wolverhampton

December
01 – O2 Shepherds Bush Empire, London
03 – Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow

The theme of a love lost is one oft-tread in the world of popular music. In 1969 the Jackson 5 sang that: “Trying to live without your love is one long sleepless night,” in 1988 Bananarama’s polished pop called out: “I want you back, don’t care what I have to do,” and in 2008 Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchinson spat: “You’re the shit and I’m knee deep in it.” The Midnight Organ Fight dealt with the break-up of a long-term relationship in a way that was brutal, honest and identifiable. This heart-on-sleeve account of a relationship gone sour was delivered at a level which connected with its audience and saw the band gain much critical acclaim — including The Best Album of 2008 right here on TLOBF. With Midnight Organ Fight so focused around one central topic it was always going to be interesting to see what the band did on its follow up.

With demons already exorcised, The Winter Of Mixed Drinks is an all round more optimistic affair than its predecessor. ‘Living In Colour’ pounds with choral voices and arms aloft; ‘Skip The Youth’, the album’s longest track by almost two minutes, is a slow building anthem that, although finding itself in the number five slot, would be closing any lesser band’s album; and ‘The Wrestle’ is driven by purposfull bass (Bass? On a Frightened Rabbit record?) and urgent rhythms.

It would perhaps be asking a little too much to expect no residue of Midnight Organ Fight creeping. ‘Nothing Like You’, perhaps the band’s most radio-friendly pop single to date, deals directly with the relationship we’re all so familiar with “She was not the cure for cancer,” and ‘Not Miserable’ requires no more exposition than a look at its title. If Midnight Organ Fight was the catharsis then these could be seen as the closure.

Musically, TWOMD gives us familiar Frightened Rabbit but, this time, with the added flesh of having two more full time members — bringing the tally up to five. Where on previous records the band’s sparse arrangements and lo-fi production provided an identity — Scott and Grant using just drums and guitar for the most part — here that character has been built on, this time with consideration to dynamics. The record is still alive with vocal loops, chanting and effects but thankfully no one tries to steal the lime light. Everything feels considered. Even the vignettes which sat amongst previous albums have been reduced to a single reprise of ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’.

Following what many considered to be the album of 2008 can only be a daunting task. The Winter Of Mixed Drinks doesn’t quite match up to its predecessor and that shouldn’t come as any surprise. Many may lament the band’s shift toward more polished production and optimism. Many may prefer Scott when he’s angry and says “fuck” more often (this is, unless I’ve missed it, the first FR record that doesn’t feature the word cunt). What shouldn’t be overlooked is that Frightened Rabbit have produced a solid album that, even though it may not repeat past glories, still stands head and shoulders above its competition.

Meursault

Scotland’s music scene is in rude health. Bands are blooming like it’s spring-time and the support of bloggers and punters has created a biosphere of creativity. So, in the first of what’s to become a regular column, Billy Hamilton – co-editor of The Scotsman’s Under the Radar new music site – delves deep into its tartan-toned landscape. At the bottom of the post, you can download a free mixtape featuring all of the bands mentioned.

If 2009 was Scotland’s cultural homecoming, then 2010 is the year its musicians need to pack their bags and finally move out.

For the bands that enthralled local gig-goers last year, the next twelve months are critical. Sure, the swollen cyber-palms of backslapping bloggers suggests a limited degree of success beckons, but true worth can only really be gauged if the tartan-kilted nest is vacated for a sojourn to more robust climes down south.

One glance at the upcoming gigs of our lauded young ‘uns shows a burning want to remain within the ball-court that begins and ends on both sides of the M8. Granted, there’s an admirable grit in believing success lies beyond fellating the barnacled cock of Big Ben, but even if the thrill of being sucked into a whorehouse of in-store shows and vacuous T4 slots isn’t your game, the possibility of discovering new audiences should be incentive enough.

In recent years, the most successful (and by successful I mean in terms of collecting critical adulation) Scottish bands to seep into the national hemisphere have been 4AD’s Broken Records and FatCat Records trio The Twilight Sad, Frightened Rabbit and We Were Promised Jetpacks. Yes, they may be enrolled on national labels but these acts had already proven themselves as capable wooers of unfamiliar crowds; each band confident in its ability to unravel the crossed arms of cynics based purely on their music. And it’s this sort of confidence the new breed of Scottish act has to exude in 2010. They need to move away from the Scottish music scene’s cotton-wooled bosom and furrow a pathway through the UK, not just across the Central Belt. Almost certainly, many will fail and return to familiar haunts to be consoled by familiar faces but, hell, at least they tried; at least they can say they gave it a stab, even if they didn’t draw blood.

Positively, 2009 saw the likes of Meursault, There Will Be Fireworks and Panda Su make their first tentative footsteps south – 2010 needs to see this turn into a concerted effort on a broader scale. Many a promising Scottish act has rotted in the gutter because of a lack of national exposure. To avoid joining them, the new batch of Scottish music makers needs to grab its future by the balls because, quite frankly, no one else will.

So, this inaugural dip into the Scottish music scene is not a start of year tiplist. It’s more a roll call of the bands that are closest to being ready to step up and make the breakthrough from local heroes to national runners.

Conquering Animal Sound
The tightly woven swell of Conquering Animal Sound provides the perfect antidote to this year’s Siberian weather front. As enchanting as a pixie snake charmer, the resplendent chimes created by Jamie Scott and Anneke Kampman have caused a drooling melee in the ranks of Scotland’s indie press. Whooshing to the gentle hum of Scott’s deft guitar, each arrangement is blessed by Kampman’s pin dropping mew. With a mixtape down and a tour of the UK to come, you’ll soon find yourself being conquered by this animal sound.
www.myspace.com/conqueringanimalsound

Dead Boy Robotics
Like running your nails against a grater to pulsing tribal rhythms, Dead Boy Robotics (DBR) are very much an acquired taste. As co-founders of the semi-defunct BEAR Scotland collective Mike and Gregor were left toiling in the wake of their more accessible counterparts. But 2009 saw the synth punk duo crank up the engine from nihilistic electro-boys to resplendent lug-rapists, coarsely running against the grain of Edinburgh’s bulbous folk scene. With a new EP of abrasive hexagonal-sonics due to be unleashed soon, 2010 promises to be the year Dead Boy Robotics shunt the gear-sticks into overdrive.
www.myspace.com/deadboyrobotics

Dupec
If We Were Promised Jetpacks are the delinquent younger brother of Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad, then Dupec are undoubtedly their intellectual cousin. Bestowing a scree of math signatures and hexagonal percussion over James Yuill’s emotive tones, the Auld Reekie trio’s first two EPs helped soil the already befouled underpants of Scottish bloggers. Now with support slots alongside Rollo Tomassi and Crystal Antlers peeking over the horizon, as well as a much needed trek south, 2010 should be the year slip from the shadows of their more renowned, if lesser accomplished, compatriots.
www.myspace.com/dupec

Meursault
It may have bookended the Noughties, but Meursault’s Pissing on Bonfires/Kissing with Tongues represented a new dawn on Scotland’s musical terra firma. Scruffy and ill-fitting, every cut embodied the fabled do-it-together ethos of Edinburgh’s Bowery congregation. Live, Neil Pennycook’s inimitable warble strikes the first blow; his masterful bellow strangling the airwaves just as readily as it soothes them. But it’s the group’s concentrated melodics that’s the real draw. By spinning together the frayed ends of parochial folk with wiry electronica, Meursault bleed a sound quite unlike anything in Scotland. Now with album number two on the horizon, this is a band that now has to step over the cusp.
www.myspace.com/meursaulta701

Mitchell Museum
When Mitchell Museum breached the lower echelons of Scotland’s toilet circuit last year, gas canister in hand (seriously), a jumble of words filtered into the brainboxes of easily amused hipsters: Collective. Animal. Wannabes. Thankfully, the Glasgow quartet proved to be so much more. A gargling waterboard of effects may cornerstone their effervescent cacophonies, but the bubblegum melodies and flash-gun rhythms cut a more populous pathway than Baltimore’s finest. Their debut album should rear its cranium in early spring and, with it, expect your ear sockets to be plugged with nothing else.
www.myspace.com/mitchellmuseum

Yahweh
Yahweh must be churning bile at all the Arab Strap comparisons. Desperate for a new miserable mainstay to call their own, musos up here have been flinging the tenuous simile Lewis Cook’s way over the past year. But buried within the Glaswegian’s cascading synths lies a beautiful songwriting accord that’s more akin to the bearded lilting of Casiotone’s Owen Ashworth than Aiden Moffat’s monotonic yarns. Either way, Cook’s star is on the rise and his intelligent, heel-gazing pop is coming your way – be sure of that.
www.myspace.com/thisisyahweh

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A couple of live dates to keep you all abreast of this afternoon.

Frightened Rabbit have announced a couple of dates:

March
09 – O2 Academy2 Oxford
20 – O2 Academy2 Birmingham

As, too, have Mumford & Sons:

March
03 – O2 ABC Glasgow
09 – O2 Academy Liverpool
13 – O2 Shepherds Bush Empire

If you’re on O2 you can get Priority Tickets to see Mumford & Sons at O2 venues next March. Tickets on sale now. Terms apply.

Frightened Rabbit, winner of TLOBF’s Album of the Year in 2008, have unveiled the name and release date of their new album.

To be called The Winter Of Mixed Drinks, it will see the light of day on 1st March 2010 via Fat Cat.

The tracklisting is as followings:
1. ‘Things’
2. ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’
3. ‘The Loneliness & The Scream’
4. ‘The Wrestle’
5. ‘Skip The Youth’
6. ‘Nothing Like You’
7. ‘Man/ Bag Of Sand’
8. ‘Foot Shooter’
9. ‘Not Miserable’
10. ‘Living In Colour’
11.‘Yes I Would’

The band have also announced a massive Edinburgh Hogmanay show, more details on that here.

Frightened Rabbit return with a brand new single ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’ released through FatCat on 16th November, a primer for the band’s forthcoming and as yet untitled abum, expected in Spring 2010.

The band head to the USA once again on 14th September, renewing their touring relationship with labelmates The Twilight Sad, returning to the UK to play a special show for the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival www.mhfestival.com on Wednesday 21st Edinburgh at the HMV Picturehouse, before hitting the road in the UK during November as follows (*supporting Gomez):

November
07 Aldershot West End Centre
09 Oxford Academy 2
10 York Duchess of York
11 Nottingham Bodega
12 Liverpool Academy 2
14 Coventry Kasbah*
15 Northampton Roadmenders*
16 Brighton Corn Exchange*
17 Southampton University*
19 Exeter Lemon Grove*
20 London Troxy*
21 Tunbridge Wells Forum
22 Cambridge Soul Tree
24 Sheffield Plug*
25 Whitehave Civic Hall*

And supporting Modest Mouse in December:
07 Dublin Academy
08 Dublin Academy
09 Belfast Spring & Airbrake
13 Manchester Ritz
14 London Shepherds Bush Empire

There was a shard-sharp moment during this gig when everything that Frightened Rabbit stand for was frozen into a blinkless instant of time. The band had left the stage after a crazed hour of redrawing the sainted contours of The Midnight Organ Fight and in that low mumbling hum before the encore Scott Hutchinson had evidently snuck back out with an acoustic guitar. I heard him before I saw him – the first strains of ‘Poke’ ‘poke at my iris, why can’t I cry about this’ – and sought out the source of the sound. Once it became apparent that he was at the lip of the stage, alone and washed in blue light, a total silence fell across the room – it bred, the way noise does sometimes, quickly enveloping everyone. I’ve seen reverence at gigs before but this was something else, a giving over, an open gesture of respect for the song and for Hutchinson’s lyrics. Whatever the reason for this – and it might just be something as simple as an honest band writing superbly well about the universal theme of feeling like shit, mostly – Frightened Rabbit have dug their way into people’s hearts. It’s an immense thing to behold.

There had been an odd humid haze about London all day, a softened focus. St. Pancras Station, always looming, looked awry, tilted at an awkward angle – it dragged the eye upwards; the rest of Kings Cross by contrast, always a haunt of street-babblers and wall-eyed nasties was seething, crouched. In the heat it was like a hair-clogged plughole. It was almost a relief to get into the gothic splendour of The Scala…

We Were Promised Jetpacks looked wired up there, tense. And so young. I assume this was the biggest place they’d played up until now. I suspect it won’t be for long. They sounded huge, starting with ‘Keeping Warm’ – the eight-minute epic from their soon-to-be-released debut album. They followed it with their new single, ‘Quiet Little Voices’ which is a great shovel of a song with Adam Thompson roaring out the chorus with real passion. It was a common theme, and you get the sense that this band really means it. There’s a point during ‘Thunder and Lightning’ where Thompson backs off from the mic and bellows ‘your body was black and blue’ and he’s shaking with the delivery of it and looks like he might buckle under the weight of the thing. The effect on the crowd is palpable and by the end of their set they get a dirty great roar of approval.

By the time Frightened Rabbit came on the Scala had filled to bursting and the heat had nearly doubled. You could feel it rising from the concrete floors. The band started with ‘I Feel Better’ from The Midnight Organ Fight and to be honest the sound wasn’t quite there. But the initial moments were all about the response, and at the end of ‘Fast Blood’ which again sounded a little thin, you could see from the band’s reaction that this was a special moment, the end of a special era. Hutchinson announced that this was the biggest crowd that had ever come out to see them and that, as it was almost exactly a year since the release of …Organ Fight, they were celebrating.

They proceeded to play pretty much the entire record, most of which was at an odd sort of half-tempo, with Scott and his bearish brother seeming to live every minute of every track. Which I guess is a kind of perfect representation of what Frightened Rabbit are – a ramshackle, dishevelled, waywardly talented band making raw, honest music into which people seem to be able insert themselves wholly, carelessly. And Scott Hutchinson is the personification of this: a shambling figure, yet a man who seems to inspire a rare kind of warmth. And when ‘The Modern Leper’ had come and gone, and ‘Floating in the Forth’ – to date, the single most uplifting suicide song I can think of – had filled the air with its pulsing warmth there was such a sense of camaraderie in the air that the band could seriously have done anything and it wouldn’t have mattered. What they did do was to play two tracks from Sings The Greys (‘The Greys’ and ‘Square 9′) and proceeded to sound the best they had done all night and became, for a time, a fucking huge rock band.

Then came the time of ‘Poke’ and everything reached a perfect sense of peace. We were thanked again for coming out, and for supporting the band through everything. We were even thanked for being nicer than a London crowd ever should be. We know that Hutchinson has been off writing the new record at a sea-side house in Fife, and we can probably infer that the collective exorcism of The Midnight Organ Fight is now complete. It’s time to move on and now I guess we wait for what comes next… They finish, inevitably, with ‘Keep Yourself Warm’ and again they sound immense – especially Grant Hutchinson, belting at his kit like a raging animal. It’s been a triumphant evening and it’s impossible not to feel happy for the band. The roar that comes as they leave the stage for the final time mingles with all that trapped heat and is carried out through the doors into the waiting fists of the Pentonville Road.

I have a new love in my life. Just don’t tell my fiancee. They’re a bunch of lads from Scotland… so she might not get TOO jealous… but they’ve convened under the title of We Were Promised Jetpacks (quite possibly one of the best band names for AGES), and they create some of most emotive and stirring music I’ve heard for ages.

Their sound finds itself charging through the middle ground of The Twilight Sad’s dense, atmospheric sheen’s of music and Frightened Rabbit’s guitar-pop and meaningful lyrics of real-life problems and moments. They’ve signed to Fat Cat records as well, which suggests that someone knows what they’re doing on both sides. I’ll be honest, since their debut album These Four Walls was sent to me, I’ve listened to very little else. I love the charging guitars, the soaring choruses, the sheer ENERGY that they’ve got going on. It makes me want to drown in their music. Their wall of guitars sounds like a massive torrent of rain – covering every part of your being, drenching you to the core in their atmospheric wall of noise.

So, I thought, I’d hassle Mike Jetpack and find out a bit more about the band.
For people out there that have never heard of you. Give us three reasons why they should…
1; You might like our music, which is fun.
2; You might hate our music, which is also fun.
3; You might have no opinion of our music, which isn’t really a reason, so I guess there’s only two.

Can you recall the moment when you first decided you wanted to become a musician?
There was a time when we first moved to Glasgow (we grew up and went to school in Edinburgh, then three of us moved to Glasgow and one of us to Stirling) and started playing proper gigs in proper venues. Playing in Edinburgh before was weird as we were underage, so ended up playing some odd nights. Which was cool, but when we moved to Glasgow we were of drinking age and we started playing places likeSleazy’s and whatnot. We felt like a proper band, so from about then, probably.

Where do your songs come from? What’s your inspiration?
Really we just try and write a song that’s better than the last one we wrote. I suppose we started trying to write songs that all four of us liked, which was pretty unusual. These days we usually try and do something in particular, like “lets have loads of noise in this one”, or more recently “this make this one really rock and roll!”. In the end they all end up sounding pretty much the same anyway…

Name your Top 5 records.
From a band point of view, stuff that all four of us like:
The Midnight Organ Fight – Frightened Rabbit; Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters – The Twilight Sad; Red Yellow and Blue – Born Ruffians; Boxer – The National; and the new demo by an Edinburgh band calledDupec.

What was the first gig you ever played and was it a success?
The first one was a battle of the bands at our school in Edinburgh, and it was a success!

What one piece of criticism has stuck in your mind and was it justified?
There’s no one particular incident, I don’t think. We’re pretty good at getting criticism, we can take it pretty well. We know we’re not the best band ever or anything like that, so when people say we’re not, we kind of agree! We get more annoyed when the person doing the review has clearly put no effort into giving us a proper listen. Or has just lifted comparisons that they’ve read somewhere else and assumedthats what we’re like. So, we’re fine if you hate us, as long as it’s not lazy journalism!

What one thing has caused you to waste your free time in the past 6 months?
University. It really gets in the way sometimes. It’s been ok though, Fatcat have been great about us pacing ourselves so we can finish off at uni.

If you weren’t making music, what do you think you’d be doing?
Oh, so little. Nothing at all, I’m sure. We’re all still pretty young, so haven’t had to look for a “career” yet. So propably starting to do that.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
Our bassist Sean once worked ridiculous hours at a bottle factory. He’d have to wait by the belt as boxes came along and move them to different positions. It soundedmonotinous for five minutes, but he was at it for hours on end. We woke up one morning when we hasn’t working and found everything nearby at the the end of the room, as he’d moved it in his sleep. True fact!

We’d like you to make us a mix-tape. Pick five tracks with a theme of your choice.
Ok, the theme is “Bands that are our friends, and are completely brilliant and you can listen to the songs on myspace or on the internet or whatever”:
1. Seek Cover – Endor.
2. Sapphire – Lyons.
3. Guts – Over the Wall.
4. Therapeutic Song – John B Mckenna.
5. I can count to twelve – Dupec.

We Were Promised Jetpacks on Myspace

The opening question to ask when presented with any live album, and especially a live album that replicates track for track an already existing album (The Midnight Organ Fight [TLOBF review]) is a big WHY? The natural thing to do would be to try to take the record as it is, as something new, and to ignore the studio recordings. Quietly Now, which features mostly acoustic versions of the Midnight… tracks, in the same running order, makes this impossible – you have to look backwards to the studio album and make comparisons, it’s inevitable, and it might be painful. I don’t mind admitting that there’s a lot at stake here for me, I’m uncommonly fond of The Midnight Organ Fight. What to do if this detracts from the genius of that record? What to do?

To give the facts first: Frightened Rabbit are a clattering folk band from Selkirk in Scotland; they make guitar based music, but with it’s chest ripped open. This is their third ‘album’. This was recorded at The Captain’s Rest in Glasgow in July 2008. The Captains Rest is by all accounts an intimate venue, and this was something of a summing up of where the band had got to so far, and a present to those who had followed the band from the beginning. Which tells you pretty much all you need to know, really – it accounts for the triumphant feel of the recording, the buzz between the band and the audience and also the buzz of the strings, the reverberations off the four walls. To all intents and purposes, this is a gesture of a band that has outgrown itself, a CDR tossed away at the end of a gig. It’s testament to the band’s integrity and power, and to the indestructibility of these raw, potent songs that they’ve to all intents and purposes, managed to get away with it.

So, having lived with this since it was first given a US release some time late last year, and to get it over with – no, I don’t think these versions do match up to those on The Midnight Organ Fight. But given the time period, and given the band I a) don’t care and b) am glad they exist. These are the skeletal brothers of those songs, but animated, throbbing with all that dumb love that Scott Hutchinson seems to bring to whatever he touches; and what’s more, in this setting, you’re ever more drawn to the quiet magic of Hutchinson’s lyrics, his phrasings.

Unsurprsingly it’s the versions of the more acoustic based tracks that work best in this context. ‘Good Arms Vs Bad Arms’ is sublime, with the richness and thickness of the chord pattern driving everything forward. The song’s coda, with Hutchinson going after his ex missus’ new fella, is dazzling: ‘just roll over boy, don’t make me do this… I am armed to the teeth and I’m heavy set’. ‘Backwards Walk’ is equally affecting. You have to wonder just deeply the breakup that birthed The Midnight Organ Fight bit into Hutchinson for these songs to still sound so full and alive, when he sings ‘i’m working on erasing you, I just don’t have the proper tools, I get hammered, forget that you exist’ the pain sounds fresh. The same applies to ‘Poke’ (the one version here that outstrips the studio counterpart) which has some of his best lines, not least: ‘I should look through some old photos I adored you in every one of those/ If someone took a picture of us now they’d need to be told that we had ever clung on tight’.

Then again, ‘Keep Yourself Warm’ (sung by James from The Twilight Sad) and ‘Floating In The Forth’ are both immense. The nakedness of both tracks comes across doubly so in this environment. The latter, the end of a long journey, despite it’s subject matter is just the most stirring and uplifting song I can imagine. It burns with intensity. And that sums up this band, and Hutchinson. And in reality, this is his record. He’s on record as saying he doesn’t really care for touring all that much and you sense this is probably a perfect halfway house. This feels like the end of a chapter. And I for one can’t wait to see what comes next.
84%

Frightened Rabbit on MySpace

Photography by Simon Godley

Tom Waits @ Le Grand Rex, Paris, July 25
The smoke of 1,000 Gauloises curled round Le Grand Rex’s art-deco facade in anticipation of Tom Waits, who was in Paris for two nights on his Glitter & Doom tour. Waits prowled the specially constructed circular stage like a demented carnie, injecting all of his 58 years of experience into a remarkable performance that swung from gypsy-folk to vaudeville to gentle jazz crooning. Sawdust billowed around him as he stomped his way across a circus ring of his own making. Skipping effortlessly through an extensive back catalog, Waits prompted the crowd to croon along with “Innocent When You Dream” before morphing into a human mirrorball, simply by swapping a hat, for “Eyeball Kid”. When a shower of glitter fell around spotlit Waits at the climax of “Let It Rain”, it felt as though the audience had been transported into the ringmaster’s own peculiar, magical universe. An outstanding showman giving his all in a beautiful venue on a warm summer’s evening – I’m pretty sure it doesn’t get better than that.—Ro Cemm

Wave Pictures @ the Borderline, London, July 30
The most striking thing about seeing the Wave Pictures live is just how amazing – as in, virtuoso level – a guitarist David Tattersall is. On record it’s easy to be sidetracked by the sharp, funny lyrics and almost overlook the musicianship, but live, it practically smacks you around the head. Nearly every song in their set had a brilliant guitar solo – always a genuine, worthwhile musical addition, never an excuse for a show-offy noodle. David was so engrossed in a particularly captivating break during “Tiny Craters in the Sand” that he didn’t notice when his whammy bar fell off, and looked most surprised when it was handed back to him afterwards. Part of the delight of the Wave Pictures is that they are such unassuming individuals, yet produce such a lyrically and musically brilliant performance. They are a band that can renew your waning faith in live music and leave you dashing for the last train home with a huge, foolish grin on your face.—Jude Clarke

Björk @ Hammersmith Apollo, London, April 14
The problem with being such a prolific attender of gigs is the inevitability that they stop being as special as they used to be. So it is pretty unprecedented for me to stagger out of a venue open-mouthed with incommunicable wonder, but that is exactly what I did on this unforgettable April night. Clad in a headdress made of multicoloured pom-poms, the irrepressible Icelandic pixie queen skipped onto stage to the tribal percussion of “Earth Intruders”. It was a spellbinding introduction to a show that, flat Antony Hegarty duet apart, was never less than enchanting. It’s hard to pick highlights from a night comprised almost entirely of them, although Toumani Diabaté’s stunning kobe on “Hope”, a bewitching rendition of “Hunter” and a glorious “Who Is It” all deserve special mentions, as does Björk’s fantastic 10-piece all-female brass section The Wonderbrass. But it was the unabashed techno-singalong of “Hyperballad” and the sheer jaw-dropping spectacle of “Declare Independence” that made the night transcendental, the latter’s mix of earth-sundering bass, silver confetti and arching lasers one of the finest closing numbers I’ve ever seen. Björk, I know you’re old enough to be my mother, but will you marry me?—Adam Elmahdi

Photography by Fleur Neale

Neil Young @ Hammersmith Apollo, London, March 8
In hindsight, I can’t believe I debated whether to go or not. Sure, the ticket prices were a bit steep, but you got some history for your cash. On the night, the set was split in half: first acoustic, then electric. I never thought I’d prefer the acoustic set, but to hear “A Man Needs a Maid”, “Harvest Moon” and “Ambulance Blues” so crystal-clear and in the flesh surpassed all my expectations. There were too many spine-tingling moments to distill into one paragraph. “Mr. Soul” sounded as fresh as it must have 30 years ago – God only knows what it was like then, because even now it sounds like a tear in the face of music. That was before I was floored by “Down by the River”: a wall of guitars cut through the years, trashing my sense of awareness and sucking me inside the sprawling anthem. It was only then that I truly realised I was in the presence of a living legend.—Rich Hughes

Photography by David Emery

Bon Iver @ St Giles Church, London, June 4
By June, Justin Vernon had watched the Bon Iver phenomenon flicker into being, ignite and roar through the music world. Still, through months of media and audience hysteria, he remained steadfastly modest. For a man concerned with all that is solid and enduring, a church whose history stretches back 900 years was a fitting venue for the last performance of his first UK tour. Three hundred lucky souls squeezed into pews and aisles, crammed into corners and dangled off balconies. Three hundred rocked back and forth, shivered and clasped hands with their neighbours to the strains of “Skinny Love” and “Flume” as Vernon’s crystal-clear vocals reverberated with an otherworldly significance; 300 filed out shiny-eyed and with a catch in their throats. Early Bon Iver gigs had left me with the thrill of discovery and later ones with the warm satisfaction that comes from a display of brilliant craft and flawless delivery, but that night has earnt an eerie, mythological place in musical memory, as though marking the time that Vernon crested an unfeasibly high peak and looked down on the world below with serenity and joy.—Emily Moore

Photography by Mike King

Photography by Chris Boland

Leonard Cohen @ Glastonbury Pyramid Stage, June 29
Forced out of retirement because of an evil manager who reportedly embezzled him out of $5 million, Leonard Cohen was back, literally performing for his livelihood. Most acts would struggle on the 80,000-capacity Pyramid stage, but Leonard Cohen immediately transformed the rubbish-soaked field into an intimate coffee house, performing one classic after another in his trademark whispered, weighty way. Each song was triumphant, from a singalong-to-the-heavens “Hallelujah” to a gorgeous, haunting “Suzanne”. Cohen lowered his cap and bowed to the audience after each song in gratitude. It is difficult to describe precisely how, but it transformed me. I have never seen a gig like it and quite possibly never will again. Kudos to you, Leonard.—Shain Shapiro

Photography by Valerio Berdini - another date, same tour

Elbow @ De Montfort Hall, Leicester, October 16
“We haven’t played a gig this good in years,” Guy Garvey said as Elbow left the stage, and you could well believe him. That night, every song was played to its utmost strengths – the brass stabs at the beginning of “Starlings” were never more fanfare-worthy, “Mirrorball” never so cascadingly lovely, “Newborn” never so heart-wrenching and “Grounds For Divorce” never so vituperative. Everyone in the room sang along, attempting to restrain themselves from punching the air as Garvey cajoled them and himself into greater vocal heights. Some artists struggle with the leap from small venues to huge halls, but Garvey thrived on it: swapping banter with the crowd; leaning forward on the mic stand as if to make a physical, literal connection with the audience; projecting that voice of bruised experience and heart right around cavernous De Montfort Hall. On their post-Mercury Prize victory lap, Elbow had nothing to prove and they played as though they were on top of the world. (Which, to be fair, they were.) The crowd knew it, too, singing back on the mini-anthems, deathly quiet on the wracked ballads. Guy passed on a marriage proposal before “Mirrorball” and, on receiving the good news afterwards, declared, “Thank fuck for that!” He bid the happy couple, “Congratulations – now here’s a song about gut-wrenching heartbreak” before launching into “The Stops”. Like pre-encore closer “One Day Like This”, whose televisual ubiquity has not dented its emotional heft one bit, the whole set was at once gorgeous and triumphant.—Simon Tyers

And the rest…

2. Radiohead @ Roskilde Festival, nr Copenhagen, July 3
3. Tindersticks @ End of the Road Festival, September 14
4. The Acorn @ End of the Road Festival, September 13
5. Neil Young @ Roskilde Festival, nr Copenhagen, July 5
RC

2. Envy @ EITS ATP, Minehead, May 18
3. Betty and the Werewolves & The Research @ the Portland Arms, Cambridge, November 5
4. Fleet Foxes & J Tillman @ the Junction, Cambridge, November 11
5. Holy Fuck @ 100 Club, London, April 8
6. Melt-Banana @ Soul Tree, Cambridge, June 24
7. Port O’Brien @ Concrete + Glass Festival, 93 Feet East, London, October 3
8. The Resistance, Holy Roller & Fuck Dress @ the Portland Arms, Cambridge, October 11
9. The Death Set @ Reading Festival, August 23
10. Volcano! @ the Portland Arms, Cambridge, November 16
JC

2. Sigur Rós @ Latitude Festival, July 19
3. Sunset Rubdown @ Luminaire, London, May 22
4. Joanna Newsom @ Latitude Festival, July 20
5. Wolf Parade @ Electric Ballroom, London, December 1
6. My Bloody Valentine @ Roundhouse, London, June 20
7. The National @ Olympia, Dublin, May 15
8. Of Montreal @ Koko, London, October 16
9. Wildbirds and Peacedrums @ Luminaire, London, June 5
10. I’m From Barcelona @ Scala, London, November 25
AE

2. Jens Lekman @ EITS ATP, Minehead, May 17
3. Fleet Foxes @ the Junction, Cambridge, November 11
4. Band of Horses @ Shepherds Bush Empire, London, July 8
5. Rolo Tomassi @ Portland Arms, Cambridge, September 29
6. Elbow @ Corn Exchange, Cambridge, October 6
7. Johnny Foreigner @ Barfly, Cambridge, May 6
8. James Blackshaw @ CB2, Cambridge March 29
9. Fuck Buttons @ Barfly, Cambridge, February 7
10. Battles @ EITS ATP, Minehead, May 17
RH

2. Young Marble Giants @ Primavera Festival, Barcelona, May 28
3. My Bloody Valentine @ the Roundhouse, London, June 23
4. Shearwater @ St Giles Church, London, November 22
5. Edwyn Collins & Roddy Frame @ the 12 Bar, London, July 29
6. The War on Drugs & Bowerbirds @ the Windmill, London, August 20
7. HEALTH & Skeletons @ Luminaire, London, May 1
8. David Thomas Broughton @ Red Eyed & Blue, the Wilmington Arms, London, May 13
9. Wave Pictures @ the Enterprise, London, March 11
10. Fanfarlo @ the Nash Room, ICA, London, April 25
EM

2. The Gaslight Anthem @ LA2, London, December 5
3. Sigur Rós @ Westminster Central Halls, London, June 24
4. Bon Iver @ Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, September 11
5. Shearwater @ Bush Hall, London, September 17
6. Frightened Rabbit @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, New York, October 17
7. The Revival Tour @ Blender Theater, New York, October 13
8. Hauschka @ King’s Place, London, November 11
9. Billy Bragg @ the Roundhouse, London, March 4
10. The Hives @ Brixton Academy, London, April 18
MP

2. The Burning Hell @ Cafe Zapata, Berlin, October 15
3. Jeffrey Lewis & Los Campesinos! @ Lee’s Palace, Toronto, May 29
4. Stevie Wonder @ O2 Arena, London, September 11
5. Slayer & Mastodon @ Hammersmith Apollo, London, October 30
SS

2. Johnny Foreigner & Dananananaykroyd @ the Charlotte, Leicester, October 1
3. Bon Iver @ End of the Road Festival, September 13
4. Dirty Three @ End of the Road Festival, September 12
5. Okkervil River @ Truck Festival, July 19
6. Of Montreal @ Summer Sundae Festival, August 10
7. The Acorn @ End of the Road Festival, September 13
8. Future Of The Left @ This Ain’t No Picnic weekender, KCLSU, London, September 27
9. The Mae Shi @ Summer Sundae Festival, August 8
10. Ballboy @ Indietracks Festival, July 27
ST

Frightened Rabbit, inaugural winners of our Readers Poll Album of the Year are to release a new, acoustic, live album on 30th March 2009 via Fat Cat.

An auxiliary cast of guest musicians (including The Twilight Sad’s James Graham, Glasgow’s scene hero Ross Clark and Adam Pierce of Mice Parade on the mixing board) are also on show.

This live recording will be accompanied by a March 2009 tour – a series of dates aimed towards resemblance to the intimacy of ‘Quietly Now!…’.

In addition, Frightened Rabbit’s Christmas Single, ‘It’s Christmas So We’ll Stop’ is out this week.  They are performing tonight through the weekend with Biffy Clyro, before heading to America for a headline jaunt in January.

Tourdates:
March 27th – The Castle Keep, Newcastle
March 28th -  The Canteen, Barrow
March 29th – The Musician, Leicester
March 30th -  Glee Club, Birmingham
March 31st – The Captain’s Rest, Glasgow
April 15th  -   Scala, London (full electric show – headline)

Photo by Lucy Johnson

Well… we’re sorry for the delay, but the two Rich’s here at TLOBF Towers have been burning the midnight oil, counting each of the votes… And now we’re ready to announce it!

According to you, the lovely, well-dressed and gorgeous readers of TLOBF, the album of the year IS:

Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight (FatCat)

Woo hoo! We’re hoping for a statement from the lads sometime soon, so we’ll update this article as and when.

In case you were wondering what fleshed out the rest of the top 10, here you go:

2. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago (4AD)
3. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes (Bella Union)
4. TV On The Radio – Dear Science (4AD)
5. Simon Bookish – Everything/Everything (Tomlab)
6. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend (XL)
7. Deerhunter – Microcastle (4AD)
8. The Dodos – Visiter (Frenchkiss)
9. Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid (Polydor)
10. Johnny Foreigner – Waited Up Till it was Light (Best Before)

An excellent choice of albums there folks!

The winner of our awesome goodie bag of musical loveliness will be notified by the end of the week.

In case you’ve missed out on all our Frightened Rabbit features over the past 12 months, you can catch the album review here, and our Twilight Sad v Frightened Rabbit two part interview here and here.

Frightened Rabbit at Hoxton Bar and Kitchen, 02/10/08. Photo credit: Lucy Johnston

Up and coming folk troubadours Frightened Rabbit played to a sold-out crowd at the ever-trendy Hoxton Bar and Kitchen. Crowd and industry alike were clearly amused by the eclectic choice of supports, but obviously blown away by the headliners.

Baddies opened proceedings with their spin on what can only be termed as Kaiser Chief-rock. Before any of you shrink back at fear from that suggestion, it isn’t intended as criticism, only description. In reality, Baddies are comparable to the Kaisers when they were on good form, ‘I Predict A Riot’ era, before the public realised that loving a band too much ultimately leads to hating them even more. Shouty, adrenaline pumped Oi-pop seemed to be the overall vibe of Baddies’ set. Their songs were well written and came across as powerful enough live, taking a pop sound but throwing in the occasional unexpected guitar flick or Klaxons-esque vocal harmony here or there. However, as with the Kaisers, there were times when Baddies did come across as slightly cliche, with their lead singer constantly feeling the need to point at a largely non-moving and ambivalent crowd in the style of a military dictator. The smart shirt/retro instrument image did nothing but solidify the indie stereotype as well. All in through, Baddies played a solid set and if, like the audience, you can look past the surface flaws, it’s easy to see a band with a hell of a lot of potential in the pop world.

After an over-long period of preparation, where your erstwhile reviewer took the time out to marvel at how expensive drinks in Shoreditch really are, Dan Black and his cohorts took to the stage. One word, and one abbreviation.

Male M.I.A.

That was the instant impact of Dan Black and his live band. The set was lathered in synth, and had songs ranging from down-tempo heavy jams to dancier future pop classics. Heavy use of sequencing and digital drums, normally well renowned for falling flat on its face during an actual show instead sounded remarkably good, with Dan showing himself to be an interesting and passionate frontman. London shows being as they always are, only the front row was truly moving in time to the music, with the rest of the audience reduced to head nods and foot taps. That didn’t seem to bother Dan Black though, no sir, as he sung with enough gusto to fill a venue much larger and more ‘up for it’ than the Hoxton Bar and Kitchen. The bassist frequently abandoned his traditional instrument in favour of a tiny synth strapped around his crotch, and the laptop wizard was always turning one knob or another. Whether that actually had any impact on the music is debatable, but if it keeps him happy, then who are we to judge? Aside from petty criticisms (all the band members had one or two repetitive gestures which got very annoying very quickly), Dan Black and his band didn’t fail to impress.

However, there was only one band the audience were here tonight to see, and that was Selkirks finest export (aside the bannocks, so I’m told), Frightened Rabbit. Suddenly the air was thick with Scottish accents, like 30 hidden north of the border ninjas had revealed themselves just in time to enjoy a bit of national pride.  Songs like ‘I Feel Better’  had large amounts of the crowd singing along, albeit in a self-conscious, half-muttered way. ‘Good Arms vs Bad Arms’ was sung with much more fire and bile than on recording, with Scott Hutchison sweating profusely, clearly wilting under the stage lights but still managing to put in a super-human level of conviction into his voice. Prolific use of swearwords were also his forte throughout the set, with his front monitors and the band’s soundguy receiving the majority of it for not delivering enough of their joyful folk back into their ears. Can’t really blame them for this though, as listening to Frightened Rabbit live is an affecting and endearing thing.

On stage, this foursome manage to inject a little punk spirit, a little anger and a shedloads of joy and raw human emotion into what by all rights should be just another folk band playing sad songs for the standard selection of semi-drunks. This of course was repaid by cheers and whoops aplenty after the end of every song (and even in the quiet bits of songs if you’re me and forgot when the song was supposed to finish, how embarrassing!). Thankfully, the rest of the audience were clearly well versed in the Frightened Rabbit canon, a testament to the solid fanbase they have amassed through their non-stop touring, convincing live performance and well-picked support slots. The Death Cab For Cutie tour was underway, and the band are due to support Biffy Clyro, but tonight’s show at The Bar and Kitchen proved to all gathered that Frightened Rabbit have the clout, knowledge and experience to dazzle crowds in a headlining capacity as well, not just playing second fiddle to an already well established act.  Frightened Rabbit have a rare ability to inspire strong feelings of emotion through their music, rather than just provide 45 minutes of entertainment. On their last song you could see couples huddling that much closer, friends embracing and jokes being shared, all the while enjoying the band in front of them. It was a palpable switch in atmosphere, and sealed the deal that tonight was indeed the night of the Rabbit.

It’s that time of year again… We’re making our list and checking it twice, trying to find out who’s been naughty or nice. Yes, it’s our Album of the Year! More coveted than a shiny penny, more famous than the winner of last year’s X-Factor and guaranteed to start debate!

This year, to shuffle blame away from TLOBF HQ, we’re getting YOU, yes, YOU the reader, to vote for the albums YOU think are the best 2008 had to offer. We’ve whittled down a mammoth list of prospective albums to a mere 50. It’s tough work, but someone had to do it.

So, mouse button at the ready – get clicking! You can pick as many albums as you like, there are no limits. If you feel it’s worthy of “Album of the Year” status, then do the right thing and cast your vote.

If you need some help making that all-important decision, you can read our take on the albums listed in our 2008 archive here.

The poll will close on Friday December 12th.

There is a prize up for grabs for one lucky reader. Some very kind record companies behind the following 50 records have offered up a selection of prizes including: ultra-rare vinyl, posters, t-shirts and CDs by some of the nominees, plus a pair of tickets to see the sold-out Fleet Foxes show at London Roundhouse in February 2009. To be in with a chance of winning this mammoth and hugely exciting prize, enter your details at the bottom of this page. The lucky winner will be notified via email. Competition closes on Friday 12th December.

[polldaddy poll="1128287"]

It isn’t called selling out anymore. It’s called ‘Licensing’. Today’s musical climate has taken the excitement and joy out of release date fever. Today’s youth can download, legally or otherwise, what they want, when they want it. The radio is playing things safe. It is the era of the Radio Friendly Unit Shifter. Ticket prices are soaring (it’s the only way the band can make money if you download kids…..you have been warned). In these conditions, TV can be the way to go for many bands- the only way to guarantee exposure and ultimately form a career in an increasingly stale market. Earlier this month Bloc Party suggested, with tongue only slightly in cheek, that they might release a whole album as a series of adverts. Just a few years ago bands would have been called out for choosing this career path. Now its just an accepted part of life for the immaculately dressed box-fresh youth that cram into Brixton Academy for the show tonight. As Orange County lies smoldering thousands of miles away a wave of sensitive youths have descended on South London. The show was moved down from Alexandra Palace-perhaps an indication that Death Cab For Cutie don’t hold quite such a hold on this nations youth as they do in the US.

The nights jollity begins with TLOBF endorsed Scots Frightened Rabbit. Over the past two years I have had a number of encounters with the band and have to admit that they have never really done that much for me. While nothing they did tonight changed that, for the first time I ‘got it’. In the cavernous Brixton Academy Frightened Rabbit’s blend of soaring tonsils, stadium bothering delay and huge drumming seemed to fit. When they get it right, their sound recalls a more rough around the edges take on the epic melodic pop that has become synonymous in my mind with Loney Dear. However, the epic pop sound can frequently go wrong and all too often the balance tips against Frightened Rabbit, and they plunge headlong into the predictable bland territory in which Snow Patrol seem to permanently reside. With such a big sound and a string of support slots at big venues (next up a tour with fellow Scots Biffy Clyro), their confidence is clearly high as they attempt to lead the crowd in a hands-above-the-head clap-a-long. The attempt falls rather flat, and isn’t the only thing which can be accused of being flat in their set. All too often the vocal harmonies they try to create fall woefully short of the mark. If they can sort this out, however, it doesn’t seem to much of a stretch to imagine Frightened Rabbit gracing stages of this size in their own right in the not to distant future. Plus, I can’t help but wish them well after the drummer thanks the audience at the end of the set before telling them all to ‘drink Stella’. Carling Brixton Academy indeed.

When the lights go down again there is a tension hanging in the air. This is it. This is our sensitive youth. The ‘No Logo’ generation. A generation that has seen it’s own subcultures bought off them, repackaged and sold back to them in a more sanitised form at a profit without batting an eyelid. Generation Why? The iGeneration. The O.C. generation. Death Cab For Cutie are their leaders. With a working knowledge of their covers, a smattering of their material on my ipod and a genuine love of one of their side projects I wasn’t quite prepared for the sheer adulation on show as soon as the band hit the stage. This is hero worship of the highest order. Teen screams greet the end of every song and the opening bars of the next. Couples embrace. Someone beside me sheds a tear of disbelief that they managed to get ‘so close’. However it isn’t until ‘The New Year’ that the band really hit their stride, the crowd singing a long at the top of their lungs. The headlong charge of ‘We Laugh Indoors’ is punk rock without the bad attitude- sanitised and melodic. The kind of thing you could take home to your mother (providing that she isn’t a Minor Threat fan or anything, in which case she would probably criticise it for lacking a certain edge.)

Without doubt Death Cab For Cutie do what they do very well indeed. And what they do is college rock writ large; jangly, emotive pop rock with Ben Gibbard’s slightly nasal vocal. They are the latest in the long line of bands with a similar sound; They Might Be Giants without the novelty songs, or Fountains of Wayne prior to their involvement with gross-out comedy. During a lull in the set I overhear a conversation that sums up the evening well. One girl says ‘I sort of feel like I recognise them all’. After a while the songs do rather merge into one, long pleasant noise. While it is hard to fault the performance, it is equally hard to get excited by it.

The night’s one true highlight comes as the rest of the band take a seat leaving frontman Gibbard alone with his acoustic guitar, bathed in light, picking gently through the beautiful ‘I Will Follow You Into The Dark.’ It’s a genuine ‘moment’, though sadly it seems we no longer know how to experience such things. As soon as the opening notes ring out hands rush to pockets and mobile phones, and cameras are held aloft, with the result being that the audience is effectively watching the show through a hundred tiny screens. In our rush to document and share our every move with others, it seems the iGeneration has forgotten how to actually experience things.

Photograph by Lucy Jay

Frightened Rabbit have recorded a new song entitled ‘Last Tango in Brooklyn’ for Australian zine The Lifted Brow. Here is Pitchfork’s take: “It’s a view looking back after a relationship has ended, and what once seemed bright and lovely has now turned cold and lonely. Starting with an acoustic guitar and building to a sad hymnal, fleshed out with chanting and tambourine, ‘Last Tango in Brooklyn’ shows a quieter, less anthemic side of Frightened Rabbit. It’s a desolate ode to something gone, that feeling not so much that the world is over but that things used to be a little more fun.”

Grab the song here!

mp3:> Frightened Rabbit: ‘Last Tango In Brooklyn’

Frightened Rabbit

Thanks to the enterprising souls behind London’s newest and most evocatively named inner-city festival, Concrete & Glass, a drizzly Thursday night spent bar-hopping in Shoreditch suddenly looked less like a punishment for a past life’s misdeeds and more like a chance to hear some genuinely exciting live music. TLOBF staked out a prime spot at Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, cameras and pencils in hand.

Frightened Rabbit grow more out of their moniker with every show they play. At the start of the year they were a timid yet compelling live prospect, their performances echoing the neurotic, unstable, somewhat self-destructive nature of their songs. Since the release of The Midnight Organ Fight, however, their live shows have grown in confidence along with the size of their crowds. Where singer and principal songwriter Scott Hutchison would once have faced the side of the stage rather than the front, tonight, in front of a bustling, bursting audience, he stands proud and self-assured. Although the sound isn’t perfect in this strange box of a venue, it’s more than adequate to carry the emotional weight of their dark songs. “The Modern Leper”, “Head Rolls Off” and “Keep Yourself Warm” all tremble with the same intense insecurity as on record, and while Hutchison doesn’t appear to be suffering along with them as he once did, their honesty and emotional integrity couldn’t be stronger. A chilling rendition of “My Backwards Walk” spits and shivers with desperation and unwanted regret. Given that the majority of tonight’s songs come from the depths of despair – inspired by a break-up Hutchison endured – the only path Frightened Rabbit could have taken was up. Tonight is proof they’ve done just that, both emotionally and musically. They’re as good as they ever were, but now, live, they seem ready to accept that fact, rather than hiding behind their songs. Proof, perhaps, of the healing power of music.

Bodies Of Water

Next up are LA’s Bodies of Water. They’re soon to support Calexico across Europe and tonight is their first, eagerly anticipated UK show. Let it be said at this point that the all-in-one bodysuit isn’t seen nearly enough. Yet said item seems to be frontwoman Meredith Metcalf’s wardrobe item of choice and, true to form, she is sporting one tonight. As she approaches the organ and the band kick in, it is as if we are transported to a dingy Berlin basement in the early ’70s, with the churning riffs, keyboard swells and distorted guitar of “Under the Pines” filling the room. Meredith’s semi-cracking voice, which has something of the music hall or cabaret about it, adds a welcome theatricality. From the middle of a packed, boisterous crowd, some of the sonic intricacies fall by the wayside. When the band try to start a song with vocal harmonies, the voices of hundreds of Hoxtonites do little to help the situation. “Do you have ‘do-overs’ in London, England?” they ask. Yes we do, and a good job too, as they break into “Water Here”, which is built around a fairground organ and group vocals akin to a less jubilant Polyphonic Spree before segueing into some prog-folk riffage and then taut ESG funk. On record, they manage to fuse a seemingly endless range of styles and textures without becoming overblown, although much of the nuance is lost on this crowd and it is the more urgent material that comes to the fore. The excellent “Even in a Cave”, with its churning drums and guitar, comes on like the Velvet Underground sitting in with Dave Brubeck. (Yes, really.) With a Spector flourish here, a brooding, fuzzy guitar there and the occasional spaghetti-western twang, by the end of the set they’ve bewitched even this excitable, distracted crowd.

O’Death seem to fill the stage with about 20 members, though there are actually only six of them, rambunctious and bearded and clearly ready for all sorts of naughtiness. They’re old favourites live, noisy as the venue can handle and bouncing around in what looks like a total shambles. But the tightness of the percussion and precision of the twangy strings – ukulele, banjo, fiddle even – tells of a deep familiarity with one another and a catalogue honed to deceptive perfection. “Down to Rest” is a stomping standard of their live shows, Greg Jamie’s nasally whine sliding into a hoarse roar over the four-to-the-floor thumped-out beat as the strings build into a frenzy. They could be Satan’s own in-house band, fiddling with evil glee as the flames rise higher. It’s a triumphant end to a darkly exhilarating night.

Words: Emily Moore, Ro Cemm and Mischa Pearlman
Photographs: Lucy Johnston

Frightened Rabbit

Bodies Of Water

Frightened Rabbit on MySpace
Bodies Of Water on MySpace
O’Death on MySpace

So what is Bandstand Busking? Well, it’s kinda like Blackcab Sessions and Takeaway Shows. A ridiculously hip indie band gets asked to perform a few tracks in weird and wonderful locations (in this instance, yup, you guessed it – on bandstands).. There are some fantastic videos up on the site at the moment.. We’ve compiled a few of the best below but we truly recomend you got forth and check the whole lot out. They’re great.

The Wave Pictures – David’s Evening On Wheels

Frightened Rabbit – Backwards Walk

Laura Groves – Coast

The Acorn – The Flood pt 2

In this, the second part of our Twilight Sad/Frightened Rabbit feature, TLOBF moves on from the ‘C’ word filled spewings of Part 1 to chew the fat with Scott Hutchison and James Graham on why both bands were overlooked at T In the Park, where they think their standing is in the current Scottish Music scene and what the pair have planned for the future.

I noticed that at T In The Park you were both in small tents. What did you make of that?
James Graham: Yip, we were in the Unsigned Bands tent. I was quite happy to play it but I saw it as a kick in the nuts because we’re not unsigned and there were bands on that bill who weren’t where we are and hadn’t put in as much work as we have.
Scott Hutchison: You feel like you’ve produced good enough music that you could be treated as a real band and not be lumbered into one of those tents. There’s a lot of promoter politics to get a good slot at T In The Park.
JG: It worked out well but at the time it felt like ‘for fucks sake’.

So will you be looking for a bigger stage next year?
JG: I’d be happy never to play it again.
SH: I preferred Belladrum, it had a much more hospitable atmosphere.
JG: I don’t like T In The Park at all – it’s pish. Connect was good but the line-up’s shite this year as well. It’s really disappointing that it’s gone down that road.
SH: It’s not really healthy to see your career in terms of the size of the tent, what’s important is who was there and who has enjoyed themselves.
JG: After we’d done an interview at T in the Park I saw some band on the NME stage and I said to the guy ‘I never want to be like that’. I’d be quite happy to stay on a smaller stage for the rest of my career.
SH: It’s quite rare for a band that explodes to ever make a long term success out of their career. I’d rather see it as a job. It’s a particularly fun one but it should be work at the same time and I wouldn’t want to have anything that I hadn’t earned. So although I thought we’d earned a stage bigger than what we got at T In The Park, we actually earned an audience there.

It’s rare to see a critical word said against you and you’re pretty well renowned on both sides of the Atlantic. Did you ever envisage this is where you would be when you started out?
JG: I think there’s an element of luck, hard work and timing.
SH: I don’t know how this will read when you print it but I knew when we’d made our second album [The Midnight Organ Fight] that it was really good and I expected it to make us more popular. I think you visualise where you would like to be and I’m happy where we are currently.
JG: I wanted to be doing this and I wanted people to like the band but I just didn’t know whether the songs were good enough. The fact that people are enjoying what we’re doing is amazing. Some more money would be nice. In fact, any money would be good.

Surely you guys aren’t doing too badly cash-wise?
JG: I’ve been on and off the dole for the past two year – mostly because I haven’t signed up for the PRS or anything like that.
SH: Well, that’s your own fault isn’t it?!

So did you guys know each other before ‘the fame’?
SH: I definitely knew who they were when they were at demo stage because I was playing them to everyone.
JG: Aye, I would go round to his house and play him our demos and he’d play me his – [laughing] it was quite gay actually.
SH: Ahh…memories. But – and this is going to sound really bummy – I actually don’t think there’s a band I enjoy listening to and enjoy spending time with as much as them. I don’t know if it’s because it started happening at the same time for us both. I remember when Alex from Fat Cat told them that Frightened Rabbit were playing at the old Stereo [Glasgow venue] and they came down to see us. Afterwards there was this group of drunken lads talking to my girlfriend and I was saying ‘what the fuck are you doing? Who are you?’
JG: We were like [Swings arms in air and puts on a particularly impressive drunken slur] ‘Alex fae Fat Cat said we’ve got the same spirit’.
SH: Aye, from then on we just went to each other’s gigs and I don’t think I missed a show until they fucked off to America. I don’t think I’ve heard a Scottish record I’ve liked as much since they released [Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters].
JG: Cheers. It’s the same for us. This is a bumfest isn’t it? You do know we’re going home together after this gig?
SH: We’ve already spooned.
JG: [Cracks up] Aye watching The Bodyguard drinking mouth wash.
SH: [Almost choking with laughter] Can I get a gammy?

Erm..moving on then. Do you think the spotlight is too heavily focused on the Glasgow scene, almost to the detriment of other areas in Scotland?
SH: No, I think it’s a good thing. It’s the one place that’s constantly maintained a presence with its music scene. Y’know Dundee came and went with The View and Aberdeen never really happened either. Not too slag Aberdeen off, it’s a nice city and all that.
JG: I’m a shareholder at Aberdeen football club.
SH: [Shocked] Are you? Really? And you’re complaining about being poor?
JG: Oh aye, the champagne’s on me. I’ve also got shares in Euro Disney as well.
SH: What the fuck? Check out stock market boy. [Mimics James’ accent] ‘Oh I’ve got nae money but I’ve got shares in Aberdeen Football Club and Euro Disney’. You’ve probably got some sitting in Microsoft too.
JG: [Laughs] I wish!

I’ve interviewed a number of new Scottish bands recently and they’ve cited you guys as the main influences in their sound. It must be quite flattering to have taken the reigns from Franz Ferdinand and stopped the glutton of slanty-fringed guitar bands we had a few years back?
JG: I really don’t think anyone should look up to us at all. We’ve only released one record and that’s nothing really.
SH: I mean it’s very flattering and I think it’s a more substantial well to drink from than Franz Ferdinand. I don’t really hear the influence in these newer bands – it must be very subtle – but it’s a nice shift in the way things sound and bands like El Padre and We Were Promised Jetpacks are pushing that forward. I feel like Glasgow has a bit more romance now and [looks lovingly at James] we’re part of that.
JG: Well there’s a lot more spooning going on. Go to [Nice ‘n’] Sleazy’s one night and you’ll end up going home with someone and spooning.
SH: [Despairingly] This is going nowhere… move on please. Please.

Have either of you noticed a change in the grassroots of Scottish Music since you set out?
JG: We didn’t really gig about a lot so I couldn’t tell you. I’m not really sure what it was like to begin with.
SH: I think it sounds a bit different. There was a lot of electro and twee going on and I think that….[tails off]. Actually I don’t really know what’s going on in Glasgow these days, I’m rarely out.
JG: I couldn’t tell you what Glasgow was like but I could tell you what the scene is like in Banton [small town outside Glasgow].
SH: So what’s going on in Banton then?
JG: Well we’ve got a jukebox in the Swan and our drummer used to be in a band called Stone Whisper. They were amazing.

There was a lot of pressure on Scottish bands to move to London a few years back…
JG: S-H-I-T-H-O-L-E: Shithole.

…I take it that’s not something you’re going to consider in the future?
JG: Nah, I’d rather be miserable up here than down there.
SH: I don’t think it’s the centre of the universe and there’s a lot of…
JG: Arseholes?
SH: Aye, but there’s a lot of arseholes everywhere. The difference between the arseholes up here and those down there is that they don’t see anything outside of their big, huge playground. You do put a lot of pressure on yourself when you first play down there but I would urge new bands not to consider London as the end of the yellow brick road.
JG: I just get really stressed there.
SH: We were playing that White Heat and I never knew the audience but the moment they walked in they oozed were proper hipness.
JG: Like Nathan Barley?
SH: Aye, exactly like that.
JG: I just end up sitting in the corner trying to avoid eye contact with people when that happens.
SH: Places like Leeds – that’s my favourite city to play in the world I’d say – have much more atmosphere and the crowd are with you constantly.
JG: Aye, the first two rows in London are like that [wildly waves arms in air] while the back rows are just looking at you like [sits perfectly still]. Christ, I don’t know how you’re going to write that up.

Aye, I’m starting to wonder. Now you’ve grown in stature, what’s the craziest commercial offer you guys have had.
JG: Naebody’s really offered us anything yet.
SH: Well we had Hollyoaks and the one that’s coming up that’s really fucking big [TLOBF has been sworn to secrecy].
JG: Nobody likes us; they’ve nae offered us anything. Nae tampon adverts or sexual favours. Although our bass player does offer them out.
SH: All we do is sit about and say ‘Ah my life’s shite, naebody comes on to me. May as well go and write another album’. So going back to the start, that’s where the misery comes from.

What would it take the for you guys to produce a chirpy, up tempo pop song?
SH: I would say that ours are poppier than theirs. I wouldn’t class them as pop but if you take the words away they’re definitely a bit poppier.
JG: We definitely won’t be writing one.
SH: He and I are going to do something together when we get a bit of time. We’ll try and take each other out of what we’ve been doing; removing me from lyric writing process to concentrate on the music, whereas he can concentrate on writing music that’s a bit quieter and a different background for his voice. That could be a pop sensation.

Is this definitely going to take place?
SH: I’d like it to happen. My mate has a place up in Fife which is always empty so hopefully we can sort something out.
JG: I’m up for that.
SH: I’m up for it as well. It’s just a nice holiday for us.

Read Part 1

Frightened Rabbit on MySpace
The Twilight Sad on MySpace

If you haven’t noticed, the Scottish music scene’s thriving. There’s a new sense of worth emanating from the nation’s sweat soaked venues and acts like We Were Promised Jetpacks, Broken Records and El Padre are creating sounds with the potential to shoot beyond the country’s towering trajectory and out over the Atlantic. And the reason for this tartan-clad revival? Well, there’re two: Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad.

Over the past twelve months the uniquely home-grown sonics of the ‘Twilight’s magnificent Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters and Frightened Rabbit’s equally elegiac The Midnight Organ Fight have pulled relentlessly on the UK public’s heartstrings. Forget the grating art school chic of Franz Ferdinand, these acts truly encapsulate the sound of modern Scotland: vehemently sarcastic, bitterly morose and absolutely, unflappably honest.

So in the first of a two part interview, The Line of Best Fit caught up with Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchison and The Twilight Sad’s James Graham before a gig in Edinburgh during the Fringe to discuss their morbid disposition, the increased popularity of the Scottish brogue and, of course, Gwen Stefani…

Well, we’re in Edinburgh and it’s the Fringe Festival. Have you had any chance to see shows?
James Graham: Nah, I’ve no money at all.
Scott Hutchison: I went to see Limmy last week.

Who?
SH: You don’t know Limmy?? Aw man, where’ve you been? If we’re talking about Scottish stuff he’s the funniest guy about at the moment. He’s got a website and he does all these podcasts and videos. It’s just wee characters that you’d definitely know if you lived in Glasgow or anywhere in Scotland really. He’s got this one character whose an ex-junkie called Jacqueline McCafferty.
JG: [shouting in coarse Glaswegian accent] Jacqueline, Jacqueline McCafferty.
SH: And he’s got another character called John Paul the Ned who’s brilliant. You should definitely go check him out.
JG: I can’t afford to.
SH: I’ll take you as a wee treat then.
JG: Aww… thanks.

Do you need to pay? Can’t you guys play the ‘don’t you know who I am’ card and stroll in to anything you want these days?
JG: They’d probably just laugh us away.
SH: Have you ever tried that? I mean, it’s easy to get on guestlists but have you ever actually rocked up to somewhere and tried it?
JG: Nah, I’d be too embarrassed – it would be awful. There was a guy going about in Glasgow saying he was our manager at one point and getting into places. Why would you even say that? You wouldn’t get in anywhere. I think the doormen just laughed at him.

Talking of japes, why do so many Scottish bands – and I count both your groups in this – have such a morbid sense of humour when it comes to lyrics?
SH: I think Scottish life can be a bit dark and miserable. I mean it’s not California here and I think it’s been bred into us. I’m always asked if I listen to Arab Strap records in my room all my time but I’ve never listened to an Arab Strap Record all the way through.
JG: [genuinely stunned] Honestly?
SH: I’m not kidding, I’ve listened to about three songs.
JG: Christ, I listened to one the other day.
SH: Aye, it’s not that I’m not interested in them but I think it confirms that it’s an innate Scottish quality to look on the bright side of darkness. [Looks at James] But you’re not very funny.
JG: I’m not funny – there’s nae uplifting parts to me at all.
SH: I went round to his house the other day and it was a beautiful summer day – one of the hottest of the year – and James was sitting by his laptop in his bedroom with the blinds down and one wee lamp on. I think he’d just closed a very rude window as I walked in.
JG: Aye so it was: YouPorn.com, I think. But I don’t really like hot weather so that was why I was sitting in my room in the dark. I just fucking hate the summer.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I hear you, especially in Scotland: a combination of pissing rain and sweaty buses equates to an omnipresent stench of wet dog.
SH: I know what you mean. You know those t-shirts you forget to wash after a particularly stinking day and then when it rains a few weeks later the dog smell comes back?
JG: I’ve nae idea what you’re talking about.
SH: You’ve never had that? I guess that’s because your mother does your washing for you.
JG: [Sarcastically] She does, aye.

Right, back to the topic fellas. Why do we Scots write such morose songs?
JG: I dunno, I just don’t like happy songs so I wouldnae write any. I hate happy people who go about smiling all the time, pretending that life’s great. That’s just not me and I don’t think many people are like that either – the Scots are just as miserable as fuck.
SH: I think the dark side is more interesting; no-one likes people who think everything is great.
JG: Like that woman from the T In The Park coverage, the one who used to be in El Presidente. She spent the whole festival saying: “amazing, amazing, amazing”. Fuck Off.
SH: Aye, amazing as a word should be used considerably less than it is at the moment. Not everything can be amazing.

There’s a fair amount of brutal colloquialism in your lyrics – I’ll use ‘puttin’ the boot in’ and ‘kicking your cunt in’ as prime examples. How does that go down outside of Scotland?
JG: In America it worked just as well.
SH: Yeah but your ‘cunt’ [in That Summer At Home I Had Become The Invisible Boy] is quite a subtle one.
JG: We also got away with it on the Gideon Coe session during the day. Nobody noticed at all.
SH: We’ve got one of our songs coming up in a mainstream American TV show that has a cunt and a shit in it and they’re playing it whole. I don’t know how it’s going to work, I don’t know if they’ll voiceover it with ‘jobby’. They really hate ‘cunt’ over there and when I use it they think I mean kicking a woman in a vagina or something equally as horrid; yet over here it’s acceptable.
JG: My mum and dad asked me about the lyrics but we’ve just never, ever spoken about ‘that’ lyric.
SH: So, is that ‘cunt’ someone I know?
JG: [Laughs] No, it’s a generalisation that signifies a whole lot of people.
SH: You mean it’s an umbrella over one person so they can’t be identified?
JG: Aye, a cunt-brella.

Have you ever seen the American website that tries to decipher your lyrics James?
JG: Oh aye, it’s amazing. It’s a shitty website that someone’s made up and it’s got stars and shit all over it.
SH: Is it that one that looks like a My Little Pony website or something. As if they needed to say ‘Unofficial Twilight Sad website’ when it’s covered in stars and glitter. Although, it might have been Andy’s doing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

With the brogue being ‘in vogue’, so to speak, I take it you see it as a good thing that folk here are singing in their own accents rather than using that faux-American drawl bands used to put on?
SH: I don’t sing in the same strength of accent as [James] does but I find that when I’m singing one of their songs I start [puts on his finest Weegie accent] strengthen’ it up a wee bit, eh. But I think there’s no other way of singing [The Twilight Sad] songs than like that.
JG: I do roll my r’s a wee bit but I never really think about it.
SH: You know there’s these American bloggers out there who call him Groundskeeper Willie?
JG: Aye, Groundskeeper Willie – fucking brilliant eh? But I’ve never really thought about singing in an accent.
SH: I don’t know why I sing with an accent either – I’d never heard his band before I started Frightened Rabbit and I’d never hear Popup either.
JG: Nah, I’d never heard Popup either, in fact I don’t think I’ve heard them to this day. Or have I? I think we’ve played with them…[ponders this for a minute].
SH: Anyway, moving on…If I’m singing about things that are happening in my own life then there’s no way I could be honest about it if I’m singing in another accent. If I put on an American accent then it wouldn’t work at all and people wouldn’t believe it.
JG: Aye, these songs are about us and there’s nae point in trying to do it any other way.

It’s well known that The ‘Twilights’ rose to prominences in the States before being picked up here, whereas I remember seeing Frightened Rabbit a multitude of times in various venues over the past few years. Considering your pathways, is it strange you’re now both on an equal par now in the States?
JG: Aye we had an American release out before we’d put anything out and then we toured there for a bit and then we came here. I quite glad we did that in many ways.
SH: It’s kind of unique to Fat Cat to be honest. So many labels think you have to work on the UK before you have a chance of making it in the States and that’s why you have the stupid pressure of cracking America or whatever. If you just go there and work like you do over here it’s probably going to happen – they fucking love Scottish music, in fact they love Scottish ‘things’. [James laughs] They do man, they love everything about Scotland.
JG: The thing is; if there’s a buzz about a British band in Britain the American’s don’t really give a fuck. But if there’s a buzz about a British band in America then it all filters back.

You mean like Bush?
JG: Aye, we’re the new Bush apparently. [Raises fists in celebration]Yes!

Could be worse, I’m pretty sure most folk would be chuffed waking up to Gwen Stefani in the morning.
SH: [Laughs] I had to do this blog thing on the Guardian and I talked about pumping Gwen Stefani from behind. I’m not sure it will ever be published.
JG: We had to do a single review column for The Skinny [local culture magazine] and we gave Bush’s new single five stars for boabin’ her and two for the song.

Okay, I’m sure Gwen’s getting the divorce papers sorted as we speak. So, how different are the American crowds to those in the UK. I’m assuming Frightened Rabbit don’t quite have the same scale as the Twilights just yet?
JG: Nah, they’re much bigger than we are over there.
SH: We sell shows out in the States all the time but I don’t think we’ve sold one show out over here. So, yeah, we’re doing pretty well over in America.
JG: We haven’t been out there in a while so I really don’t know. I think the only significant thing for us, was playing the Pitchfork festival. All the other shows were pretty small, at about 200 – 300 people.

That’s still pretty good I’d say, considering I saw The Ruby Suns over there and there must have been about twenty people. It’s odd they don’t seem to support their own, don’t you think?
SH: Yeah but it can be really random as well. There were some pretty dead shows initially.
JG: Aye, you have to get through the shit to get to the good.
SH: People over there find music a lot more independently than they do here – there’s not quite so much external influence. I find the NME governs what people think all too much here and they don’t really have that in the States.
JG: They’ve got Pitchfork but quite lot of people look down on them for being cuntish to bands. They’ve been really good to us but I think there’s a lot of negativity towards them because of how harsh they can be. If you look at the Black Kids review or even the Jet one where a monkey was drinking its own piss – it’s pretty funny but if it was your band you’d be like [puts on mortified expression].
SH: Pitchfork are capable of ruining bands careers.
JG: Aye they are: British Sea Power got U.2 for their new album. I really think that’s worse than a monkey drinking its own piss.

Look out for part two of the interview next week!

Frightened Rabbit on MySpace
The Twilight Sad on MySpace

The absolutely brilliant Frightened Rabbit are to release an album of mostly acoustic live versions of (some) songs from their astounding album The Midnight Organ Fight from earlier this year, set for release on October the 21st in the States and sometime in April for the UK. The recordings come from a gig at Captain’s Rest, Glasgow on July 30th this year, with a guest appearance from FatCat label mates The Twilight Sad’s James Graham on ‘Keep Yourself Warm’.

If the Pure Groove in-store they played on Moday is anything to go by, just… oh my god, oh my god.

Tracklisting for Liver! Lung! FR!:
1) The Modern Leper
2) I Feel Better
3) Good Arms vs. Bad Arms
4) Fast Blood
5) Old Old Fashioned
6) The Twist
7) Head Rolls Off
8) My Backwards Walk
9) Keep Yourself Warm
10) Poke
11) Floating in the Forth
12) Who’d You Kill Now?

Frightened Rabbit will support Death Cab For Cutie on their Autumn UK tourdates. It seems as though Death Cab are quite taken with the Rabbit – In the latest issue of Rock Sound Magazine, bass player Nick Harmer called The Midnight Organ Fight his album of the year, stating: “It’s lyrically perfect with words that hit you right in the heart. And coupled with the singer’s (Scott Hutchinson) vocals, the whole thing just kills me.” He ‘aint wrong. We loved it too.

Those tour dates in full:

November
12 – St. Georges Market, Belfast
13 – Ambassador Theatre, Dublin
14 – Corn Exchange, Edinburgh
15 – Rock City, Nottingham
16 – Colston Hall, Bristol
17 – Carling Academy, Sheffield
19 – Alexandra Palace, London

If we’re to quote The Cranberries (and why shouldn’t you?), “Everybody else is doing it, so why can’t we?”. As we’ve past the halfway point in this year of 2008, it seemed like a good time to look back. What have been the musical higlights of the year so far? We’ve had some absolutely corking albums released, from Fleet Foxes genre defying debut, to Elbow’s continued cultured and heartwarming release. It might surprise some of our readers what’s ended up on this list but one thing this exercise has made us realise, is that come the end of the year, there’s going to be a big pile of albums under the ‘Excellent’ heading…

So how did we decide on the final 10 albums? We asked all of our writers to email in their favourite 5 releases of the year thus far. Each album voted for was then given a point and entered into a highly technical spreadsheet – which left us with the following records…

The Wave Pictures Instant Coffee Baby [TLOBF Review]

Indie-rock as witty and consummately British as the erection you’re creepingly becoming aware of as you sit drunkenly a bit too close to a pretty girl on a couch.
Tom Whyman

This album still entrances, amuses and delights me, seven months after first hearing it. The naïve-yet-profound lyrics have a unique charm, perfectly matched by their jangle-indie setting. One of the most refreshing releases in many a year: wonderful stuff.
Jude Clarke

Instant Coffee Baby is the album that has probably received the most repeated plays so far this year. The songs are packed with witty, lyrical nuggets – with each listen you pick out ones you’ve previously missed. Perhaps not a perfect album (it could do with a couple of songs shaved off the end) – it is still totally satisfying, and one of the best indie pop records you’re likely to hear this year.
Rich Thane

Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes [TLOBF Review]

Quite extraordinary, otherworldly lay ‘hymns’ from an amazing new act that are unlikely to be 5 minute wonders. This album beautifully showcases their gorgeous sound-drenched sound.
Jude Clarke

I have no doubt that in years to come, this flawless debut will appear amongst Revolver, OK Computer and Nevermind in those annoying ‘Best Album of All Time’ lists that crop up year after year. A band hasn’t excited me this much since…well, I really can’t remember. It truly is a work of art and without doubt, one of the greatest debut albums I’ve ever heard – and what excites me more, is that I strongly believe they have so much more to offer. Go and buy the album, see them in concert, buy the t-shirt. Whatever. Just let them into your life. Now!
Rich Thane

This is, without doubt, one of the best albums ever, let alone this year. An offering from a band that have found a huge place in my life.
Rich Hughes

Frightened Rabbit Midnight Organ Fight [TLOBF Review]

So, what’s so great about yet another white, male, 20-something, indie rock band, then? How about: Great production decisions, a concentrated lyrical direction, stellar songwriting, Scott Hutchinson’s voice walking the line between warble and sublime melody, melody and lyrics walking the line between bleakness and euphoria? My favourite music makes me giddy, supremely confident in myself, and in love with life, in all it’s ugly, beautiful, dreadful glory. And, I suppose, all of that is what makes Frightened Rabbit and The Midnight Organ Fight so great.
Simon Gurney

Utter perfection. These guys deserve to be fucking huge. But the foul language and dodgy subject matter will always prevent that from happening. Maybe that’s the point? The album also has my favourite lyric of the year so far: “You’re the shit and I’m knee deep in it”.
Rich Thane

Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago [TLOBF Review]

What more can I say about this mysterious, mystical, raw, emotionally epiphanical dream of a record? Its popular resonance has single-handedly revived my faith in the essential goodness of humanity – a sentiment I’m sure its creator would agree with.
Emily Moore

So I’ll forgive and forget the fact that it manages to sit next to Bon Jovi on my ipod. I’ll even forgive the fact its only 37 minutes long. Which may be a good thing, as the delicate, claustophoic beauty of this album has been unequalled by anything else so far in 2008, and is all the better for its brevity. No fancy tricks or gimmicks, just great songs packed with emotion and a fizzling intensity.
Simon Reuben

There are less than a handful of records from this decade that I could happily choose as a desert island disc. The fact that two have been released in 2008 (the other record being Fleet Foxes) that I would literally die for proves this year has been the best year in music in – well, god knows how long. For Emma, Forever Ago is a work of unadulterated genius. The sincerity and honesty within it’s nine songs floored me from the very first time I heard it – that was nearly 12 months ago and even now I’m still finding new sounds and textures and emotion to wrap myself up in. Justin Vernon has created a stone cold classic, and easily one of the greatest records of the 21st Century.
Rich Thane

Elbow Seldom Seen Kid [TLOBF Review]

Oh my. What an album. Has there been a more consistent band in recent times? Guy Garvey’s found love and want’s to tell the world about it, but he’s also lost a friend and discovering Richard Hawley’s perfect croon. This is an album to fall in love with everytime you listen to it. It’s not here for the shorthaul, but, like the rest of their material, it’s here to amaze and touch you on each repeated play.
Rich Hughes

Johnny Foreigner Waited Up Till It Was Light [TLOBF Review]

Best indie-pop record since Slanted & Enchanted or (at a stretch) Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? And plus it manages to take in Cap’n Jazz too. I literally couldn’t ask for more, which is why I gave it (sort of) 100%. 100% is a score I suppose usually reserved for shimmering brilliance but to my mind its equally applicable to this sort of joyous, perfectly imperfect shouty pop amazingness. ” CAN’T LOOOOSSSE YOU IN CROWDED ROOMS!” etc.
Tom Whyman

And I thought they were amazing live! This is all that the Los Campasinos! album should have been. Full of energy and youthful vigour, I felt 10 years younger just listening to it. This is everything an indie-pop album should be about.
Rich Hughes

Bonnie Prince Billy Lie Down In the Light

Going back to the country, the bonnie prince lightens up and delivers an understated masterpeice.
Ro Cemm

It may have been released to a distinct lack of fanfare, and it’s no I See A Darkness. But it’s an intricate, warmly rewarding album, and an eighth note from Will Oldham is worth a career’s worth of songs by most bands around today.
Emily Moore

Sun Kil Moon April [TLOBF Review]

Mark Kozelek’s style of songwriting, from the early days in Red House Painters and then this most recent Sun Kil Moon album April, has always sounded to me like the aftermath of a broken nose. As strange as it may seem, that is always what his music evokes for me; a heady, muffled and painful throb. His soft, weak (but not in a bad way) voice dipping away into the rest of the instruments, guitar repeating it’s litany, calling to mind the slow powerful transformations found in minimalism, a thrumming quality that overtakes my mind, a style that gives me a temporary head cold, where just the music and melancholy survive, everything beyond that is a haze.
Simon Gurney

The Red house painter man returned to form on this melancholy work, the guitar work is right up there with his best work for a while, and moved away from the cover versions he had been known for.
Ro Cemm

Mesmerisingly beautiful. That’s all I’m going to say.
Rich Hughes

Beach House Devotion [TLOBF Review]

An otherworldly album that manages to wonderfully create its own atmosphere and feel. Shimmery summery haze-pop of the highest order.
Jude Clarke

In an age where second albums suffer from lack of ideas, imagination and focus – Beach House returned in 2008 with a renewed sense of vigour for their sophomore effort. The original ‘Beach House’ bluebrint still remains, but this time with an added pop sensibility and a more luscious production that you want to dive into and wallow around in for hours. When it comes to dream pop – nobody does it better than Beach House.
Rich Thane

Keyboard Choir Mitzen Head To Gascanane Sound

[TLOBF Review]

Like the sound of a thousand planets crashing into one another, this is one of the most adventerous and thought provoking debuts of the year so far. Their intelligent use of samples, spoken word interludes and their own sense of brooding power combines wonderfully to create an album that could best be described as a more accessible Fuck Buttons. But that does these guys an injustice. They’re their own band, creating their own fantastic sound.
Rich Hughes

Honourable mentions:
Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks Real Emotional Trash [TLOBF Review]
The Silver Jews Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea [TLOBF Review]
The Duke Spirit Neptune [TLOBF Review]
Los Campesinos Hold On Now Youngster [TLOBF Review]
HEALTH Disco [TLOBF Review]
El Perro Del Mar From The Valley to the Stars [TLOBF Review]
These New Puritans Beat Pyramid [TLOBF Review]
The Black Keys Attack and Release [TLOBF Review]
Portishead Third [TLOBF Review]
White Denim Workout Holiday [TLOBF Review]
Fuck Buttons Street Horrrsing [TLOBF Review]
British Sea Power Do You Like Rock Music? [TLOBF Review]
M83 Saturdays = Youth [TLOBF Review]

You can buy any of these albums, plus a whole load more in our brand spanking new online store. Click here to visit.

They’re one of our new favourite bands. They’re the missing link between Idlewild and The Wedding Present. They’re going to be huge. They’re Frightened Rabbit. That’s all you need to know… apart from the answers to our recently revamped 20 Questions…

1. Describe your sound in 3 words.
Nice thick jumper.
2. What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it?
Vanilla Ice, the first (although sadly not last) album. I probably bought it in John Menzies before WHSmith barged in and ruined everything.
3. What’s the best cure for a hangover?
1 glass bottle of Irn Bru and two Sainsbury’s scotch eggs.
4. What’s on your rider?
See above…
5. How do you get ready for a live show?
I like to turn the lights on and off three times in the dressing room before heading to the stage whilst counting the steps and clicking my fingers with each step singing ‘there’s somebody at the door’ over and over in my head.
6. What’s your favourite song to play live?
“Be Less Rude” (single out November on Fatcat records on 65″ vinyl and 1cm compact disc…).
7. What’s your guilty pleasure?
Cutting down trees.
8. Who would win in a fight, a stoat or a goat and why?
I actually saw a stoat fighting a goat once. Apparently the stoat had been beating on the goat’s kid. It was a walkover i’m afraid. Goat got game.
9. What was the last album you bought?
Vanilla Ice the first (though sadly not last) album.
10. If you could rid the world of one song – what would it be?
“Go Go Girls” by Frightened Rabbit. Not a fan.
11. Who would play you in a film based upon your life?
I’ve been told Paul Giamatti would be a perfect fit.
12. Dead or alive. What 5 acts would you have play with you at a festival?
I would have Lil Chris, Simply Red, Dandy Warhols, 30 Seconds To Mars and Lily Allen. They would all be dead at my festival.
13. If push comes to shove, what is your all-time favourite album?
Brendan Benson – Lapalco.
14. What’s your most memorable on the road story?
We haven’t clocked up that many miles and stories as yet, but there was the time when we all took our trousers down in a hotel elevator in Salt Lake City only to be confronted by stern security guard as the doors slid open. He said ‘Get ya damn trousers on and go to your room’. Very fair.
15. If your life flashed before your eyes, what would be the highlights?
The time I dyed my hair blonde. The fabulous jobby I took this morning. The night I killed Lil Chris.
16. What’s the best piece of advice someone has ever given you and did you take notice?
Stay away from that dog. It bites. I stayed away and did not get bitten.
17. If you had to leave a body part to science, what would it be?
The baby growing out of my side.
18. What’s the best book you’ve read and film you’ve seen in the last 6 months?
Book: The Big British Book of Birds Film: Teen Witch
19. What three things could you not live without?
The Wire, wire wool and the word ‘the’.
20. Tell us a fact about yourself we probably don’t already know.
I am a lifelong…….

Links
Frightened Rabbit [official site] [myspace] [tlobf loves...]

When our friends over at Fat Cat records started talking about frightened rabbits I was a bit concerned. Perhaps their water had become contaminated with LSD or they’d been watching some random remake of Watership Down. However, it was cleared up when a CD popped through my letter box and it became apparent that Frightened Rabbit was, in fact, a band who were releasing their debut single “Be Less Rude”.

It was clear from the first time I played it that I was falling in love. The lyrics delivered in a winning Scottish lilt, friends of the Twilight Sad and a love for all things indie rock, it was a perfect combination. “Be Less Rude” has all the hallmarks of a great indie-pop record. The opening riff should have Johnny Marr on the phone asking if he can have this signature guitar tune back. The vocals pained at the realisation that you’ve now fallen in love with a girl who’s frightfully rude, and who you might also have offended in previous meetings. There’s also a touch of The Wedding Present to it’s crashing guitars that mount up as the song progresses, the resignation in the vocals strikingly similar to David Gedge.

Flip side “The Greys” proves they’re no one trick pony either. It’s a futher charge of electric guitars that rush out of your speakers, coming on like Idlewild at their earliest, aggressive selves. The song lamenting those days when you just can’t get from underneath a dark cloud that’s following you around.

Do yourself a favour, hunt these guys down. Don’t wait though; the wave of support is growing. Listening to 6Music the other night and Mark Riley is already on about booking them for his show. If he has his way, they’d never leave, so make sure you catch them before they get locked in his cupboard.

Click here to view the embedded video.

mp3:> Frightened Rabbit: “Music Now”
[From Sing The Greys; 19th Nov 2007 Fat Cat] ]]> http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2007/10/tlobf-loves-frightened-rabbit/feed/ 2