Painting of a Panic Attack
Painting of a Panic Attack is the fifth and final studio album by Scottish indie rock band Frightened Rabbit. The album was released on 8 April 2016, through Atlantic Records. It is the band's only studio album to feature guitarist and keyboardist Simon Liddell, a touring member who joined them in a permanent capacity after the departure of Gordon Skene. After frontman and founding member Scott Hutchison's disappearance and subsequent death in 2018, the remaining members retired the Frightened Rabbit name, leaving Painting of a Panic Attack as their final album.
Painting of a Panic Attack
Following the release of their fourth studio album, Pedestrian Verse (2013), Frightened Rabbit embarked on an extensive tour in promotion of the album, a process which left the members burnt out and frustrated. Hutchison moved to Los Angeles to be with his girlfriend at the time, and recorded a solo album, Owl John (2014), while the rest of the band remained in Glasgow. When the band started working on new music, the songs were transmitted via email between Hutchison and the other members. The full band reconvened in New York during the summer of 2015 to record Painting of a Panic Attack. The album was produced by Aaron Dessner, who first met Frightened Rabbit when they opened for The National in 2013.
Painting of a Panic Attack marked a departure from Frightened Rabbit's signature sound as they began to incorporate electronic elements into their music. Dessner's production was compared to his work with the National, a decision that was met with mixed approval from music critics. Hutchison's lyrics and vocal performance, however, received widespread critical acclaim. Painting of a Panic Attack also did well commercially, reaching number one on the Scottish Albums Chart, number 14 on the UK Albums Chart and number 42 on the Irish Albums Chart.
Background[edit]
Frightened Rabbit released their fourth studio album Pedestrian Verse on 4 February 2013, via Atlantic Records.[1] As part of the album promotion, the band embarked on an extensive 18-month tour, which led to burnout and heightened tensions within the ensemble.[2] Drummer Grant Hutchison told Jason Keil of the Phoenix New Times that they "just got run absolutely ragged [...] We all lost each other and ourselves a little bit" over the tour.[3] After the conclusion of the tour, lead vocalist and Grant's brother Scott Hutchison moved to Los Angeles to be with his girlfriend at the time. While there, he recorded a solo album, titled Owl John.[4] Grant and the rest of Frightened Rabbit, meanwhile, remained in Glasgow.[2]
In 2014, guitarist and keyboardist Gordon Skene decided to leave the band. In a statement on Facebook, the remaining members of Frightened Rabbit said, "There is no more to tell other than sometimes things just don't work out and when people have differing opinions often the best option is to simply part ways and get on with life separately."[5] In Skene's place, touring member Simon Liddell was brought in as a permanent guitarist and keyboardist.[6] In an interview with Gigwise, Hutchison told Andrew Trendell, "Without going too far into it, Gordon's personality didn't fit with the band, and Simon's really, really does".[7]
Themes and composition[edit]
The bulk of the album surrounds the decline of Hutchison's relationship after he moved to Los Angeles, and the way in which he and his girlfriend "just built this moat around [them]selves and it became such an intense thing – and an incredibly unhealthy thing in a lot of ways, where you rely almost completely on this one person".[18] Unlike previous records, such Pedestrian Verse and Frightened Rabbit's second studio album The Midnight Organ Fight (2008), which were written some time after the breakup that inspired them, most of the lyrics on Painting of a Panic Attack were composed while Hutchison was in the midst of the relationship. As a result, the album is bleaker than previous releases, because "if you write after the fact [...] then you're able to be amusing about it or more hopeful about it".[10] The crux of Painting of a Panic Attack, Hutchison said, is about the feeling of "we're gonna escape, but where are we gonna escape to?"[8] Hutchison's mother described Painting of a Panic Attack as a "healing album", but Hutchison himself was skeptical that it was "any more personal or any more cathartic than anything else I've done".[19]
Thematically, Painting of a Panic Attack began as a straightforward concept album, "where it was going to have a couple of characters and a narrative around them. And then life gets in the way, or walks in."[20] When Hutchison sent the initial demos to Grant, his brother observed how he was "editing [his] own life out of the songs to censor personal issues", and, after spending "a couple of days sulking about it", Scott responded to Grant and said, "'regretfully, you are correct'".[8] Its most personal track is "Still Want To Be Here", which exists as a culmination of Hutchison's feelings on his time in California,[8] while "I Wish I Was Sober" is an "amalgamation" of several times when Hutchison realized that his patterns of alcohol use were unhealthy.[20]
Hutchison told The Skinny that Pedestrian Verse "became a conclusion of sorts", and the band began to move towards a different sound with Painting of a Panic Attack.[14] In particular, Frightened Rabbit started to incorporate electronic instruments into the album, as the geographic separation between Scott and the rest of the band required Scott to use music software to supplement his "acoustic guitar and vocals in a room".[12] On songs like "Woke Up Hurting", the dark lyrics are contrasted with an upbeat instrumental backing, as Hutchison has "always enjoyed that contrast between twisted lyrics and something that's a very open door".[10] The album closes with a subdued, piano-focused number, "Die Like a Rich Boy".[21] Hutchison said that Frightened Rabbit was either going to close with the track or "Death Dream", and chose the former because, "The two characters go out with a bang but the album doesn't, musically speaking."[9]
The original album title was Monuments, which Scott said was "supposed to be representative of a beautiful place that you go to remember something awful".[14] Painting of a Panic Attack similarly "was a way to describe someone or something beautiful yet damaged", and Scott believed "that contrast between beauty and turmoil" was an excellent summation of the album.[22] Other potential album titles included The Spill of the War, taken from a lyric in "Blood Under The Bridge", and Bye.[17] While Monuments was eventually dismissed as being "too open and vague" for the album, the working title did inspire the cover art, which depicts "a monument being a place to go to remember something awful".[19]