ARE Selkirk’s Frightened Rabbit at last destined to make it as big as their choruses, or is it too late already, given the rise of Mumford & Sons and Noah And The Whale’s man-the-barricades brand of intense folk music already?
Pedestrian Verse is their fourth record, and their best yet after John Hutchison set himself the challenge of “not settling for any old lyric if you call your album Pedestrian Verse”. Unlike the Mumfords and first and third album Noah, Hutchison is drawn to the bleak and black, the rotten in the state of ConDem Britain, much like fellow Scots Glasvegas and Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat, as he raises his stirring voice and his memorable, literary imagery in the wind-swept wilderness.
That voice has more commercially minded accompaniment than before, no doubt as a result of signing to a major label for the first time, but such doom and gloom may still leave Frightened Rabbit as neglected outsider prophets.
• Frightened Rabbit play Leeds Brudenell Social Club on February 20.
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