The Saturday Sound — Week 3
Frightened Rabbit — The Midnight Organ Fight
By Gavin Dransfield
Music is an extraordinarily honest form of art. It’s raw and immediate and brave by its very nature. It can be rehearsed and reworked again and again, but never faked. And while the modern dogmas of popular culture have come to favor songs that are approachable, polished, and easy to swallow, bands such as the Scottish rock outfit Frightened Rabbit still understand (well, understood — they disbanded just last year) the power of music that stands opposite. Music that’s candid, genuine, and even harsh. Their songs have a tendency to make their listeners wince, cringe, or perhaps cry, because they’re built on a foundation seldom found in most music: pure, brutal honesty.
From an instrumental standpoint, The Midnight Organ Fight is fairly harmless. It’s a folk-rock album: upbeat and incredibly pretty. Triumphant acoustic guitars and busy bass lines swell atop fast and energetic rhythms. It’s the kind of thing that makes you want to kick off your shoes and dance your heart out. It’s irresistible, and if you want to try and prove me wrong, listen to the track “Old Old Fashioned” without at least tapping your foot. I dare you.
The band also makes use of some very ‘2000s indie rock’ nuances such as the slightly distorted piano loop which opens the track “The Twist.” A few tracks, such as “Head Rolls Off,” feature a rock organ in the background of the mix. Elements like these will easily resonate with fans of groups such as Death Cab For Cutie and Band Of Horses.
But then there’s the vocals. These are the centerpiece of every song here. The late Scott Hutchison lends his powerful, emotional, and somewhat boozy accent-heavy voice to the album perfectly, giving it a megaton of heart and twice as much fervent punch. His voice is completely uninhibited, but that’s not even to mention the lyrics. It’s what he’s singing about that will really stop you in your tracks.
The Midnight Organ Fight is a portrait of heartbreak and the pain, the dangers, the horror of relationships and of love. Much of it is focused on the flaws of the self that make such engagements seem unfair or unwarranted. In “The Modern Leper,” Hutchison sounds almost accusatory:
“Well is that you in front of me? / Coming back for even more of exactly the same / You must be a masochist / To love a modern leper on his last leg.”
It’s a bleak look at the lovers who gravitate towards each other again and again, despite blatant and painful obstacles. There’s even a line about cutting off one’s foot “to spite [their] leg.”
“Good Arms vs Bad Arms” laments the unavoidable sorrow of seeing a past lover with someone else, the nagging jealousy that never fully departs:
“I am armed with the past, and the will, and a brick / I might not want you back, but I want to kill him.”
And then there’s “Keep Yourself Warm,” perhaps the most bitterly sincere track on the album. Provocative and touching in all the right ways, this song examines the folly of seeking comfort through uncommitted intimacy. It’s downright abrasive, and it ought to be listened to blind, with no prior knowledge of lyrics or tune. You ought to hear it with your guard down.
The Midnight Organ Fight is simply remarkable. It has all the right tools on its belt to make you dance, make you sob, and knock you speechless either way. It will break you if you let it, and that’s a good thing, because it’s one rare album that won’t shy away from doing so. It’s held up over the past decade as a paragon of true artistry, because nestled within its biting honesty is something even more hard to swallow: a portrait of the self. A portrait of the grotesque traits of the human psyche that no one can deny. Not me, not you, not anyone.
This album will break you if you let it. Please, for the sake of the musical and emotional catharsis that is so difficult to find in the present day, let it. Just let it.
Stream the album:
