CD Roundup: Broken Bells and Frightened Rabbits

Broken Bells
ALBUM: “Broken Bells”
LABEL: Sony

After an OK-at-best collaboration with Beck in what seemed like a match made in sweet-people heaven, everybody’s favorite electronic producer Danger Mouse is back behind the scenes. This time he’s with everybody’s favorite 2000s sentimental dream boy James Mercer of the life-changing Northwest brigade The Shins.
Their first installment is a chill affair for the band (we can call them a band, because they claim they are not just a one-record stand) who use for their template, like most every modern indie band, Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and that ever-flowing fountain of extra-cool ironic crackerjacks that is the 1980s. But the pair is able to make it work, using real instruments to boot.
“The Ghost Inside” channels Gnarles Barkley to dig up some good ol’-fashioned soul, while “The High Road” wouldn’t sound out of place on The Shins’ last record. “Sailing to Nowhere” sounds more like a collaboration between Daft Punk and Ben Gibbard in the parts that surround the charming ragtime piano.
By no means has this duo made something to be stacked on a perfect albums list, but if they are what they say they are (a real band with a future), then this is a hell of a starting pad to build on. These Broken Bells can chime.
3/5 stars

Frightened Rabbit ¬
ALBUM: “The Winter of Mixed Drinks”
LABEL: FatCat Records

It’s about time for the limelight to shine on this frightened rabbit. More accurately, on the indie boys of Frightened Rabbit out of Scotland, who have been hopping around for seven years now. Their third full-length, “The Winter of Mixed Drinks,” (which is every winter in our tundra) could be their step into public view or at least the blog-happy sector of the public.
Their sound has gusto — less like a frightened rabbit than one with gall, one that wouldn’t be afraid to take what it needs from your radish garden.
Their sound is what might happen if Band of Horses collided with Interpol: a too-huge epiphany that is more like a borderline orgasm. Occasionally their story songs even promise the literary chops of The National.
“The Wrestle” is an absconding song, with The Edge guitars grappling with a melodious bass and revelatory vocals of sure-fire emotion. “My enemies/Please stay close to me/No breath left/Cold breath thief”.
The album’s first single “Swim Until You Can’t See the Land” nurtures the feeling of escape described in its title with swift percussion setting the pace for singer Scott Hutchinson’s heart-in-larynx wails.
The whole album has a desperate aura surrounding it — the feeling of a man running away. What else would one expect from a Frightened Rabbit? But with the stylistic maturity of the album, these Frightened Rabbits might be running right into the spotlight.
3.5/5 stars.