Frightened Rabbit: Pedestrian Verse (10th Anniversary Edition)

Of all the things that many fans of Frightened Rabbit miss about singer Scott Hutchison, one of the biggest is the fact that, underneath the heartbreaking lyrics and the crippling depression, he was just so funny. Be it in interviews or banter or interactions with fans, his warmth seemed to exist in defiance of the deep sorrow that permeates the entire catalog of the Scottish band, a testament to sweetness triumphing over the dull ache of inner turmoil. Hutchison’s finest brand of humor was, unsurprisingly, centered in the self-deprecating: sometimes in the form of making light of his own struggles, but other times it was his way of relating the kind of self-effacing, “aw, shucks” sentiments that crop up when some people are recognized for their talents.

You can see that self-deprecation all over the band’s penultimate record, 2013’s Pedestrian Verse, which has been given the deluxe, “2LPs with one LP devoted to rarities, demos, and live cuts” treatment that the entirety of Hutchison’s career deserves (looking at you, Numero Group, who would release one hell of a career retrospective box set). Even the title (itself a reference to the song “State Hospital”) feels reflexive, as though asking the listener to temper their expectations when consuming the album. “Only an idiot would swim through the shit I write,” he sings on album closer “The Oil Slick,” 40 minutes after confessing “I am that dickhead in the kitchen giving wine to your best girl.” This isn’t new for Hutchison: remember, this is the guy who once admitted to not caring if his dance partner calls him by the right name. Pedestrian Verse presents us with just another step along his path towards perfecting his flavor of confessional songwriting.

What sets Pedestrian Verse apart from The Midnight Organ Fight and The Winter of Mixed Drinks is that everyone around Hutchison has gotten considerably sharper. The songs of the record were road-tested to the point of well-worn comfort by the time the band entered the studio with Brian Eno collaborator Leo Abrahams, with the expanded creative roles of the other members helping push the band’s outer boundaries into more sinewy territories. Look at songs like “Dead Now,” which sees Scott’s voice being manipulated alongside erratic, infectious percussion, or like the noisy, shockingly-danceable closer “The Oil Slick,” which does some incredible heavy lifting to counteract much of the darkness that exists within Pedestrian Verse. Credit is due to drummer Grant Hutchison, whose contributions to the textures of the record elevate an album that could have easily been just another showcase of Scott’s songwriting abilities into an excellent showcase of everyone’s abilities. “Late March, Death March” is a killer song, but the rhythm of it is on a completely different level than it would have been on an album earlier.

Even though Frightened Rabbit sounded stronger than ever, the struggles of Hutchison were ever-present and inescapable. Death, decay and decline loom large over all of Pedestrian Verse, as though Hutchison is working to make the album as close to body horror as he can. Skulls are dug up from back gardens, people are put in mental healthcare facilities, throats are clogged with oil, so-called “honorable” knights assault drunk women at parties. In “The Woodpile,” you’ll find “a snapped limb in an unlit pyre.” In “Holy,” he demands “Stop acting so holy/ I know I’m full of holes.” In “Late March, Death March,” he confesses that he’s got “stubborn marrow in bastard bones.” It’s hard to know what to make of it all, but in a way it feels like a natural thing for an atheist to dwell on: not the spiritual, but the physical.

This is also where Hutchison unleashed many of his feelings about religion, from drunk priests to his repeated insistence that God isn’t real: “There isn’t a God so I save my breath/ Pray silence for the road ahead.” At times, though, like with “Holy,” Hutchison’s pleas of “Will you save me the fake benevolence/ I don’t have time/ I’m just too far gone for a telling” make it clear that some of his religious guilt is just good ol’ fashioned guilt. One album later, he’d be singing about wishing he was sober — here, though, he blends all of his various guilts together in a swirl that results in stanzas like “I’ve gone deviled my kidneys/ Now he’s living inside of me/ If we can’t bring an exorcist/ I’ll settle for one of your stiffest drinks/ We’ll scream hell towards heaven’s door/ And I’ll piss on your front porch.”

Ten years on, it feels difficult to look at the music of Scott Hutchison with the keen eye of a critic — some art feels too precious to dissect. But he would likely be the first to decry any attempt to label him above critique, especially considering how much he used his own songs to critique himself. As such, we can be honest: they were a band that were still finding their footing, still working on new ways to sound fresh, and it didn’t always work. Some songs here could be stronger, like the too-brief “Housing (In)” and “Housing (Out),” which deserved to be given more oomph than they got, or “Nitrous Gas,” which just feels a little flat. Pedestrian Verse wasn’t the strongest, nor the weakest, of Frightened Rabbit’s catalog. Once you can set aside any desire to rank or dissect the album, though, it’s easier to simply accept it as another piece of a flawed, talented, funny, sad artist, working to make tiny changes through his music — for better or worse.