The Fray is one of my not so guilty pleasures. Their songs are impossibly hooky, heartfelt enough without being too sappy; I did deride their debut, 2005\u2019s How To Save A Life, <\/i>for being too same-y throughout, but that was before hearing their self-titled sophomore album, which finds itself drained of even Life\u2019s <\/i>slightly bland brand of catchiness.<\/p>\n
While earlier Fray singles \u201cOver My Head (Cable Car)\u201d, \u201cLook After You,\u201d and \u201cHow To Save A Life\u201d found themselves propelled forward by more compelling lyrics and some lovely soundscapes (Dave Welsh\u2019s rich lead guitar work, Ben Wysocki\u2019s unshowy but solid drums), the material on this disc seems to blend together, consistently held down by vague lyrics and a noticeable lack of resonant choruses. Lead single \u201cYou Found Me\u201d is jammed full of signature punchiness — a soaring chorus, singer Isaac Slade\u2019s throaty, lovelorn vocals, and shimmering guitars — but overall it still breaks less ground than even some of the lesser cuts on their previous disc. Somehow, though, by sheer virtue of The Fray\u2019s splendid power-pop workings, tracks that are technically mediocre still end up being palatable. Opener \u201cSyndicate\u201d is pretty empty lyrics-wise (\u201cDon\u2019t ever forget \/ We haven\u2019t lost it all yet \/ All we know for sure \/ Is all that we are fighting for\u201d) but Slade\u2019s raspy, endearingly imperfect vocals are easy to get lost in and the instrumentation very nearly reaches anthemic, even if it\u2019s missing some substance. About half the music here follows this blueprint: Slade asking Big Questions (\u201cIs this all we get to be absolute?\u201d on \u201cAbsolute,\u201d for example), slow-burning instrumentation, and a lot of random platitudes thrown in (nothing\u2019s as grating as the philosophizing on \u201cSay When,\u201d which ends up being a pseudo love ballad and a half-baked political statement all in one). I hate to hate The Fray. How To Save A Life <\/i>still gives me that warm fuzzy feeling, even if it\u2019s not boosting my indie cred in any which way; \u201cLook After You\u201d will always remind me of a lovely boyfriend and the title-track recalls one of Scrubs<\/i>\u2019 most stirring moments. But this album tires out its welcome by the fifth or so track, collapsing under the weight of its own attempts to be profound and universal. It falls into a rut and never climbs back out, save for moments of experimentation on closer \u201cHappiness,\u201d a nice acoustic moment that strips back the ornamentation, and \u201cWe Build Then We Break,\u201d which unexpectedly ends up working mostly by daring to stray from formula. It\u2019s built on thrumming, chilly drums and stabs of guitar, which give the track a rockier yet still atmospheric feel, aided too by Slade\u2019s distorted vocals. The Fray <\/i>isn\u2019t breaking any new ground, although it still will probably do well roping in new fans with some well-placed product placement (something about The Fray just screams rom-com or a poignant Grey\u2019s Anatomy <\/i>moment). There are still moments to love here, but unfortunately they\u2019re few and far between.\u00a0\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":29752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7698],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-41359","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-fray","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41359"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}