Frightened Rabbit - The Winter Of Mixed Drinks (Fat Cat) 01/03/10

Unlike Noah & The Whale, who shouted from the rooftops the fact that 'The First Days Of Spring' was Charlie Fink’s break-up record following his split with Laura Marling, there is no hint in the pre-release promo that 'The Winter Of Mixed Drinks' is the result of any relationship turmoil on the part of Scott Hutchison, or indeed, any other member of Frightened Rabbit. Yet peer a little closer, and in amongst all the maritime references there appears to be a charting of the mental and emotional trials of a man left bereft by lost love.

Opener 'Things', which takes a hint of the guitar riff from The Smiths’ 'How Soon Is Now' and turns it into an all-engulfing tsunami of an intro, has Hutchison raging against the unfairness of having to fit in with life’s templates, a frustration only released by the uplifting abandon of previous single 'Swim Until You Can’t See Land', which suggests the only cure is to do exactly that.

This portentous opening is followed by darker mental wanderings, with 'The Loneliness & The Scream' being either a physical or metaphorical tale of a man lost and wounded in a forest, while things get blacker still on 'The Wrestle', a description of someone being eaten by a shark more frightening than any fishy horror flick.

It’s not until track six and 'Nothing Like You', however, that the reason for this broken and confused state of mind becomes apparent, with Hutchison sticking two fingers up at some former lover as he describes being emotionally pieced back together by a new one. The fact that he does this with the sort of chorus that makes you want to grab onto it and hold on tightly all the way to the end means you’re firmly on the side of the tormented, rather than the tormentor.

If 'The Winter Of Mixed Drinks' is Frightened Rabbit’s 'The First Days Of Spring', then 'Not Miserable' is its 'Blue Skies', with Hutchison trying to persuade us and himself that he’s finally over the hurt. On the surface he sounds anything but, but there is something in the insistent avalanche siren of a motif that sends out some sort of primal signal that everything is probably going to be ok. Further confirmation comes on 'Living In Colour', an ode to positivity that was probably written after a quadrupling of the daily prozac dose.

The subject matter sounds morose, then, but Frightened Rabbit have such an extraordinary knack of creating an upbeat, soul-raising framework to hang it all from that there is nothing for it but to be enthralled. In an ascendancy that has now reached album number three, this Scottish star shines as brightly as ever.