"The Winter of Mixed Drinks" is a fitting title for latest offering from Scottish rockers Frightened Rabbit; its songs are ripe for drowning one’s discontent in a highball glass, or several.

Coming on the heels of their acclaimed sophomore album, 2008′s "The Midnight Organ Fight," "Winter" finds the band soaring to new musical and emotional heights. After nearly two years of touring behind "The Midnight Organ Fight," frontman Scott Hutchison holed himself up in the Scottish seaside town of Crail to write the new record. ("If I hadn’t come now to the coast to disappear / I may have died in the landslide / Of rocks and hopes and fear," he sings on deceptively cheery-sounding lead single "Swim Until You Can’t See Land."

The locale evidently provided ample inspiration, with oceanic themes flowing throughout "The Winter of Mixed Drinks." Like a tidal wave, contemplative opener "Things" gradually builds to a crescendo, and repeated references to drowning provide a depressingly unifying motif. "Swim" and the album’s other teaser track, bitter kiss-off "Nothing Like You," strong in their own rights, are just the tip of the iceberg. The rest of the record plunges the listener into a sea of despair with hardly a reprieve to come up for air.

On "Winter," which Hutchison says comes closer to his original sonic vision of Frightened Rabbit than either of their previous releases, the singer is backed by his longstanding bandmates, brother Grant Hutchison on drums, guitarist Billy Kennedy and bassist/guitarist/keyboardist Andy Monaghan, as well as new addition and multi-instrumentalist Gordon Skene. Musically-speaking, the tracks are deeper and more layered. Orchestral string arrangements add poignant resonance to songs like "Skip the Youth" and "The Wrestle." Grant Hutchison’s drumming — always inventive but sounding more mature on this collection — once again provides the heartbeat of the record (see: the anthemic "The Loneliness and the Scream"), while his brother’s crack-riddled Scottish brogue is at its heart-wrenching best on the haunting album closer "Yes, I Would" and unconvincing "Not Miserable."

Yet all the doom and gloom is wrapped up on songs so stirring, so rousing, that it’s impossible not to detect a glimmer of hope, especially in the background oohs and ahhs, which are plentiful. Consider the track "Living in Colour" — a chant-y, borderline jovial tale of coming back from the brink that includes the title phrase as well as the line, "Am I dancing? Or am I simply spinning in my grave?"

It’s hard to tell, but whichever the case, "The Winter of Mixed Drinks" is the perfect soundtrack.

Musically speaking, 2008 was a year of highs and lows. For me personally, the latter outnumbered the former by far. I’m grateful for my two greatest discoveries of the year, Australian duo An Horse and Scottish troubadours Frightened Rabbit, but a slew of lackluster offerings from the likes of R.E.M., The Killers, and most egregiously, Shiny Toy Guns, made for a disappointing year overall. On top of those, the appeal of most of the albums that critics completely fawned over, from artists like Vampire Weekend, The Hold Steady and Fleet Foxes, just went right over my head. Last year, I had trouble narrowing down a field of several what I thought were excellent albums into a top 10. This year, my picks (for the most part) are the result of separating the less mediocre from the more. The first four albums are wonderful records that I truly believe are worthy of a top 10 mention in any year. But in a year with better musical offerings on the whole, I doubt the final six would even crack my top 20. It was difficult to place them in order because none of them particularly stood out to me. They’re all fine records, but I’m eagerly looking ahead to 2009 for a better musical buffet.

1. An Horse – “Not Really Scared” EP

I guess I’m cheating a bit here by allowing a five-song EP to qualify as an album, but these 18 minutes courtesy of a fledgling Australian duo was the best thing I heard in ’08 by far, and I’ve been obsessed with it since I first heard it back in May. I’ve already reserved a slot on my 2009 Top Ten for their full-length debut, which will be released in the U.S. in March.

Download: “Warm Hands”

2. Frightened Rabbit – “The Midnight Organ Fight”

A solid, no frills rock record from this Scottish band offered a welcome reprieve from the navel-gazing noise rock that seems to have usurped the indie landscape.

Download: “Fast Blood”

3. Ra Ra Riot – “The Rhumb Line”

This record took a while to grow on me, but I find that that’s often the case with my favorite albums. For all those Arcade Fire fans anxiously waiting out the band’s hiatus, here’s something to tide you over.

Download: “Ghost Under Rocks”

4. Uh Huh Her – “Common Reaction”

Harmonized airy vocals, catchy rhythms and loads upon loads of synthesizers kept this album in heavy rotation on my iPod all year long.

Download: “Covered”

5. The Ting Tings – “We Started Nothing”

You may be wondering what set this duo’s album apart from other 2008 releases in the indie-dance-rock genre, and to be honest, I can’t really put my finger on it. I just know that it’s impossible to sit still for the vast majority of this album, and that’s good enough for me.

Download: “Shut Up and Let Me Go”

6. Ladytron – “Velocifero”

Exploring a darker, more industrial sound on their latest effort really paid off for this Liverpool foursome.

Download: “Tomorrow”

7. Gaslight Anthem – “The ’59 Sound”

Like Bruce Springsteen on speed, this punk band channels The Boss’s blue collar groaning and takes it up a notch.

Download: “Great Expectations”

8. Coldplay – “Viva La Vida (Or Death and All His Friends)”

I realize I’m putting a major chink in my credibility by including this in my top 10, but the juggernaut that is Coldplay can always be relied upon to follow the formula of what makes an anthemic rock song. And, say what you will about Chris Martin, the man knows how to write a ballad that cuts to the core.

Download: “Viva La Vida”

9. Horse Feathers – “House With No Home”

Bon Iver’s “For Emma, Forever Ago” made a lot of top 10 lists this year, but the underappreciated Horse Feathers elevates his acoustic, folksy shtick to the next level.

Download: “This Is What”

10. Kanye West – “808s & Heartbreak”

West continues to redefine his persona and hip-hop in general by showing his softer side. Armed with beats and a vocoder, West channels his grief after his mother’s death and a split with his fiancee into some of his strongest material to date.

Download: “RoboCop”

Runners-up: The Raveonettes, “Lust Lust Lust”; The Airborne Toxic Event, “The Airborne Toxic Event”; Amanda Palmer, “Who Killed Amanda Palmer?”; Girl Talk, “Feed the Animals”

Best Songs of 2008

1. MGMT – “Kids”

2. Chairlift – “Bruises”

3. Madonna feat. Justin Timberlake – “Four Minutes”

4. Rihanna – “Disturbia”

5. Katy Perry – “I Kissed a Girl”

6. Santogold – “L.E.S. Artistes”

7. T.I. feat. Rihanna – “Live Your Life”

8. Dragonette – “I Get Around”

9. Death Cab for Cutie – “Grapevine Fires”*

10. The Stills – “Being Here”

(*Technically not a single, but the standout track on what was otherwise a bland and disappointing major label debut from Ben Gibbard and company.)

Scott Hutchison, lead singer for Scottish foursome Frightened Rabbit, has a rare knack for making even the most crass sentiments sound tender.

“It takes more than fucking someone you don’t know to keep warm,” he gently intones on “Keep Yourself Warm” from the band’s sophomore release “Midnight Organ Fight.”

On the surface, “Midnight Organ Fight” is a sweet-sounding collection. But Hutchison, backed by his brother Grant on drums, as well as guitarists/keyboardists Billy Kennedy and Andy Monaghan, keeps thinks interesting by throwing in the occasional vulgarity-twinged surprise. Take this gem from sweet acoustic ballad “Poke”:

“Why won’t our love keel over as it chokes on a bone / We can mourn its passing and then bury it in snow / Or should we kick its cunt in and watch as it dies from bleeding?”

“It sounds kind of clean, but it’s actually pretty fucking dirty once you get listening,” Hutchison explains in the album’s press materials.

Still, Hutchison, who sounds like a Scottish Adam Duritz, particularly on tracks like “My Backwards Walk” and the rollicking “Heads Roll Off,” is a poet at heart. The majority of the tracks on “Midnight Organ Fight” are laments to lost loves and failed relationships. “You must be a masochist to love a modern leper on his last leg,” he sings on the album’s lead-off track “The Modern Leper.”

For “Midnight Organ Fight,” Frightened Rabbit enlisted the help of producer Peter Katis, who has worked on efforts by Spoon, The National and Interpol, to craft a pristine whole that is more than the sum of its parts. Grant Hutchison’s pounding drums more than compensate for the band’s Doors-ian lack of a bassist, especially on tracks like the stirring, guitar-driven “Fast Blood” and jangly “Old Old Fashioned.”

The record is marred only by a trio of minute-long tracks (“Bright Pink Bookmark,” “Extrasupervery” and “Who’d You Kill Now?”) which feel out of place and break up the overall flow of the record.

But taken as a whole, “Midnight Organ Fight” acts as a catharsis for the listener, and apparently for Hutchison as well. On the oddly-hopeful penultimate track, “Floating in the Forth,” he reflects, “I think I’ll save suicide for another year.” It’s emo for the folk crowd – and for now, Hutchison can take comfort in the fact that his heartache is the root of Frightened Rabbit’s allure.

Frightened Rabbit U.S. tour dates:

May 24 Philadelphia, PA M Room
May 26 Allston, Mass. Great Scott
May 27 New York, NY Pianos
May 28 Cleveland, Ohio Grog Shop*
May 29 Chicago, Ill. Double Door*
May 30 Madison, Wis. High Noon Saloon*
May 31 Minneapolis, Minn. 400 Bar*
June 1 Chicago, Ill. Do Division Festival*
June 2 Kansas City, Mo. Record Bar*
June 4 Dallas, Texas Granada Theatre*
June 5 Austin, Texas The Mohawk*
June 6 Houston, Texas Walters*
June 7 Baton Rouge, La. Spanish Moon*
June 9 Birmingham, Ala. Bottletree*
June 10 Nashville, Tenn. Exit/In*
June 11 Columbus, Ohio The Basement*

*with the French Kicks