Best Frightened Rabbit Songs

Stereogum counts down the best Frightened Rabbit songs. Man, I am bummed they didn't open for the National when we saw them. 

That way the band has been on a steady slow-burn of a rise is just one way in which they’ve always felt akin to the National. Frightened Rabbit is currently opening for the National, and it’s the sort of match-up that seems so perfect (but also overwhelming), that it’s curious how it hasn’t happened till now. There’s quite a bit of shared DNA between the two, from their shared reliance on building tension and eventually, maybe, releasing it and the fact that both of their sounds have been shepherded into maturation by producer Peter Katis. (Both bands wound up contributing to If a Lot of Bands Play in the Woods…?, a covers album in tribute to Katis’ band Philisitnes, Jr. You should listen to Frightened Rabbit’s cover of “My Brother Tom, The Green Beret.”) Most importantly, each of them favor a mode of storytelling that’s deeply personal. The National’s Matt Berninger often goes cerebral and impressionistic; Scott Hutchison usually goes drunk and ragged and brutally honest. It’s the kind of approach that can be off-putting, but obviously rewarding once you’ve dug in and given a bit of yourself back to the music.

The Loneliness and the Scream is their #4; it's my personal favorite:

“The Loneliness And The Scream” might rank as the unquestionable #1 on some Frightened Rabbit fans’ lists, and I might wind up in that camp some day. To be entirely honest, while I always liked the song, I’m just new to thinking it’s this good. The moment of conversion came with seeing the band in April, when they closed the night with this. Before that, it had always felt like “The Loneliness And The Scream” built and built but never quite burst into the payoff it seemed to want; call it a victim of the way so much of The Winter Of Mixed Drinks feels huge minute by minute. Live, though, you do get that payoff, the band letting the whole thing loose, a theatre full of fans screaming along to those “oh oh ohs” at the end. For a band that’s used such refrains time and time again, this is the definitive one. Which makes sense, since this song sums up everything about Frightened Rabbit for many listeners. Much of the earliest parts of the song revolve around images of, well, loneliness—not so much about the fallout of the relationship or social anxiety or whatever, but the isolation that lingers down the road. Then comes the other part of the title: “And the scream to prove/ To everyone/ That I exist.” In some ways, you can ascribe that to Frightened Rabbit’s entire career, down to the way their misleadingly shy name contrasts with the magnitude of their sound. It’s the sentiment that drives so much of their music and many of Hutchison’s lyrics, a longing to be acknowledged. All the yells feel different, more triumphant, when you hear it live, amongst hundreds or thousands of fans. At that point, nobody needs to prove anything anymore.

 I know someone who would want to include "The Wrestle..."