The Scottish quintet Frightened Rabbit fits pretty neatly into a collection of majestically surly Scottish bands — The Twilight Sad, Glasvegas, We Were Promised Jetpacks and others — that sound as if they'd like to be left alone. So it's not exactly a great thematic reach for Frightened Rabbit to explore themes of solitude and alienation on The Winter of Mixed Drinks and its fine first single, "Swim Until You Can't See Land."
As the six-minute anthem's title suggests, singer-guitarist Scott Hutchison's pursuit of escape comes tinged with more than a whiff of self-destruction. For every allusion to the demons at his back — "Let's call me a Baptist / Call this the drowning of the past" — a grand chorus is there to hint at a less cleansing fate. Standing at the shoreline, pondering "the boredom that drove me here," Hutchison finds himself wedged between the dashed hopes of his past and a future where prospects are bleak. It's not called "Swim Until Your Legs Give Out," but it might as well be.
Listen to yesterday's Song of the Day, and subscribe to the Song of the Day newsletter.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
