Frightened Rabbit check into State Hospital; diagnosed with fear

ClashWhen you’re a couple years on from your last album and still a calendar year off from your next, yet you want a pretence to stage a North American tour, what do you do? If you’re Frightened Rabbit, whose Winter Of Mixed Drinks was back in 2010 and major label debut isn’t due out until early 2013, you put together five-song EP of new songs, call it State Hospital, release it on vinyl and digital only – because the kids love their vinyl and MP3s – and you hit the road.

Not that they needed the excuse to tour – their October 10 show at the Mod Club was well sold out a while ago – but if they wanted to remind folks of why their decidedly Scottish, anthemically miserable folk-rock has made the band beloved, they’ve begun streaming the EP at Pitchfork ahead of its release on September 25, setting the stage for them to finish up some European dates before crossing the pond. For whatever reason, Winter didn’t have quite the charm of its predecessor, the breakout Midnight Organ Fight, but the new EP is whetting my appetite for the band again, which is to say it’s doing its job.

The Daily Record, The 405, and The Banter have interviews with frontman Scott Hutchison about the new EP and the next album.

Stream: Frightened Rabbit / State Hospital

Lots of angles from which to get your daily Neil Halstead fix: a new MP3 from Palindrome Hunches is available to download courtesy of IFC, a new video has premiered at Nowness, and an EP to go with the Fall tour that brings him to the Dakota Tavern on October 8 is available for free – or you can leave a tip if you like – at Noisetrade, and includes songs from all points of his career. Including Mojave 3. And Slowdive. Yeah.

MP3: Neil Halstead – “Tied To You”
Video: Neil Halstead – “Hey Daydreamer”

Billboard has a conversation and The Alternate Side a session with Alt-J, making their Toronto debut at Wrongbar tomorrow night.

Bat For Lashes has made another track from The Haunted Man available to download; it’s out October 23.

MP3: Bat For Lashes – “Marilyn”

Beatroute and The Boston Phoenix talk to Bloc Party.

The Toronto Star has a feature on The xx, who’ve made another track from Coexist and a new track not on the album available to download.

MP3: The xx – “Sunset”
MP3: The xx – “Reconsider”

Billboard profiles The Vaccines.

Under The Radar reports that Ladytron frontwoman Helen Marnie has begun work on a solo record and is hoping to crowdfund it via Pledge Music. And by selling her car.

The AV Club reports that Manic Street Preachers will celebrate the 20th anniversary of their debut album Generation Terrorists with a slew of special edition reissues coming on November 5. This is the album, if you’re recall, that was supposed to outsell Appetite For Destruction, propel the band to global superstar status, culminate in a three-night stand at Wembley Stadium, and then allow the band to burn out and disappear. Fancy-pants twentieth anniversary editions weren’t in the manifesto, but what really turns out the way we expect?

The Guardian profiles the career of Amelia Fletcher, now fronting Tender Trap.

For Folks Sake chats with Stevie Jackson

The AV Club offers a starter’s guide to the musical genre referred to as “shoegazing”. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.