These are the things I associate with Frightened Rabbit: log fires, belts of single malt Scotch, poetry, love, beards and the feeling that there may finally be an end to a sadness you’ve been feeling for too long.
Painting of a Panic Attack is Frightened Rabbit’s fifth album and it continues a mission to deliver epically charged heart-warmers, tinged with a sense of melancholy, all brought to you by men as vulnerable as they are burly.
The major difference here is in the addition of Aaron Dessner from The National on production. You’d be forgiven for expecting a wallow in dourness from the trans-Atlantic cousins, but thankfully it never reaches those levels of portentous reflection. However Painting of a Panic Attack adopts some of the grandeur of The National, with their swelling horns, atmospheric synths and the similarly heart-stopping percussion of The National’s Bryan Devendorf.
There is an argument to say that Frightened Rabbit now sound like a bigger, more internationally appealing band who aren’t far off from filling a stadium, but miraculously they’ve lost none of their charm and sensitivity. Every track sounds like it’s been written just for you, designed to put a big hairy arm around your shoulder to give you a squeeze of loving companionship.
If I have any criticism, it’s that at 15 tracks, it does get a little long, and once you get to ‘400 Bones’ things start to tail off. ‘Lump Street’ in particular sounds like something that belongs on a much duller band’s album. Maybe Stornaway or something. But it’s worth it for the beautiful majesty of ‘Little Drum’ or the thrillingly ecstatic ‘Get Out’ and to be honest, the adding of more Frightened Rabbit songs to the world makes for a much gentler, lovelier world.
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