First Listen: Frightened Rabbit's The Winter of Mixed Drinks

If The Winter of Mixed Drinks is a mainstream breakthrough for the FRabbits, it'll be because of their slowly building reputation for endearing songcraft, not because they've gone Full Snow Patrol. Mercifully, they've turned away from that road. The Midnight Organ Fight was written in the midst of a difficult break-up for Scott Hutchison. The Winter of Mixed Drinks is less nakedly emotional than Midnight Organ Fight, presumably because Scott's life is now more bleary-eyed than teary-eyed. But while Winter's comparative stoicism means there's fewer potential anthems here, there's also less for cynics to object to; think Sing The Greys, with better songs.

Some of FRabbits best songs, such as Square 9 and Be Less Rude, were on that debut album, so what do I mean? Fourth track The Wrestle starts with a mysterious swirl, like distant siren song through fog, which lends it an interesting atmosphere, and the next song Skip The Youth has nearly two minutes of noisy build-up before vocals come in (this song actually has several great moments and is an instant stand-out). These are hardly innovations, but they show Scott Hutchison's confidence as a songwriter. And so he should be confident, cos he's had a couple years of everyone telling him how great he is. That tune isn't going to change now.