LISTEN TO IT #6: HERE’S YR SHOVEL, THERE’S THE GROUND

[defrog]

I often feel that indie rock has been going through a kind of identity crisis in the last ten years or so, where more often than not you get a variation of either Death Cab For Cutie, Snow Patrol or Arcade Fire – it’s not exactly rock, but there are definitely guitars in there somewhere, which makes it edgy enough for indie but safe enough for, say, the Grey’s Anatomy soundtrack.

Maybe I just lack the vocabulary to really describe it, or maybe they’re throwing out the rulebook and I just can’t tell. bedsitter23  probably has a better idea than I do.

Anyway, Scotland’s Frightened Rabbit falls in there somewhere closer to the Arcade Fire school – not in terms of member numbers, lyrical content or pastoral leanings so much as channeling indie rock through a massive wall of sound to create a dense dreamy landscape, or maybe ...

Oh, bugger it. Just listen, will you? This is frighteningly gorgeous music.

Watch on YouTube

So is much of the rest of their current album, The Winter Of Mixed Drinks. We’ll see how long the honeymoon lasts, but for now I’m charmed.

This is a story and yr not in it,

This is dF