Frightened Rabbit - Quietly Now!

Rightly, there’s been a lot of adoration for Frightened Rabbit and last years album ‘The Midnight Organ Fight’. To commemorate this they’ve decided to release this live recording.
ade at The Captain’s Rest in Glasgow, it is mainly acoustic and captures the entire album, excluding only the instrumental interludes. ‘Quietly Now! Liver! Lung! FR!’ is therefore quite obviously stunning. The problem is that there’s not much more we can say about the songs that haven’t already been said.

‘The Modern Leper’ is still a brilliant opening song, the acoustic guitar is joined by bursts of organ-like keyboards and tinkling percussion. Stripped here of all production in its live environment it still soars thanks in part to Scott Hutchinson’s unbelievably superb voice. It’s not a surprise that the crowd cheer at the end of this song is as loud as it is, for the performance is so utterly brilliant we nearly feel the need to cheer ourselves. At times it is easy to forget that this is a live recording, such is the quality.

It’s a cliché with live albums to talk about how all the imperfections of a performance are captured, but that doesn’t mean that it’s any less true. There’s cracks in the vocals that seem only to highlight the emotion and there’s the times that Hutchinson moves slightly too far from the mic that the vocals are captured a lot quieter. Things like this really make the record. There’s the deep rumble and atmosphere that opens ‘Floating In The Forth’, the piano and choral backing that accompanies ‘The Twist’.

The thanks to those that made the show possible are left on this record, heightening the rawness of this recording. It feels as though it’s come straight from the gig, without any meddling. ‘My Backwards Walk’ is good enough to be the highlight on most records as everything falls into place so perfectly, yet with it being followed by the delight that is ‘Keep Yourself Warm’, it almost pales in comparison. The crowd who during the performance seem to have been in silent reverence, let out a massive cheer afterwards, showing that we’re not the only ones to have been enthralled.

A stop-gap release it may be, but with all of the guest appearances and the stunning renditions of these amazing songs we can’t blame Frightened Rabbit for releasing this, really we can only thank them. It’s a truly captivating record.