- Scott Hutchison (lead singer/rhythm guitar) on the title of The Winter of Mixed Drinks
After months of endless touring in support of Frightened Rabbit's previous album The Midnight Organ Fight. Scott Hutchison escaped to the small Scottish town of Crail to "get healthy and sane". It's a familiar story really, artist retreats to a secluded post to get away and ends up inspired and renewed. The result is the Scottish bands third album, The Winter of Mixed Drinks. I'm not sure if it's self-fulfilling that this album feels like it was created on the desolate shores of a seaside town or because I know that it was, that's what I envision when I listen to it. Either way, what an amazing accomplishment of an album. It would have been easy to completely drop the ball in an attempt to follow up The Midnight Organ Fight, an album with strong stand out tracks (Poke, Old Old Fashioned, The Twist, etc) Instead the band made an album of self discovery and we are all better for it.
The first track on the album, "things", is a crescendo of sounds that highlights the recording process and the production of Peter Katis (The National, Fanfarlo). The albums first single "swim until you can't see land", which came out late last year sounds better here in the context of the album then it did to me when I first heard it. Another stand out track is "the wrestle" which is highlighted by an interesting harmony and a build up, break down structure. Hutchison calls it "one of the most oblique songs I've ever written".
There are those that will hold this album up to the light of Midnight Organ Fight and see through it. Which is a shame because The Winter of Mixed Drinks certainly blazes its own trail. I, for one will be happy to walk on the Scottish shores and throw salt covered rocks into the sea.
