Frightened Rabbit - The Winter Of Mixed Drinks

Hopefully by now people will have stopped writing FR off as twee indie miserablists; their name gives no indication of the heart-swelling delights contained within. The way ‘The Loneliness & The Scream’ turns bitter abandonment into a defiant cry of empowerment and ‘Nothing Like You’’s brutal realism (“She was not a cure for cancer…”) proves that rather than wallowing in self-indulgent sorrow, FR are now masters of the intimate emotional portrait writ large. To some it will seem cloying and trite, but persevere: underneath Scott Hutchison’s warm burr lie a clutch of songs that deserve to be held close and tight.