Denver pioneers of your mother’s rock music — The Fray are back. This band from Colorado has spun another collection of sweetly-sung piano rock on a self-titled album that would not make a terrible soundtrack to a hospital drama. They’re slightly more risk-taking and insightful than they were on How To Save A Life, but we’d be kidding ourselves if we said this album gave us foresight of them breaking out of their top-40 mold.
The Fray is easy to listen to; it hooks the listener from track one and holds mild interest until the finish. While most of the 10 tracks aren’t anything to write home about, none of them are particularly objectionable.
“Say When” is an explorative mixing of tempos. The verses are rough and slightly less melodic, crescendoing into a typical chorus that wouldn’t make a bad sing-along.
Following the same driving piano backbeats of How To Save A Life, “Where the Story Ends” will surely weasel its way onto primetime TV soon. Something about lead singer Isaac Slade’s raspy voice mixed with his lyrics — “Trying not to lose your own / boxing up everything you’ve got / all you ever knew of home” is refreshingly paternalistic.
“Enough for Now” tells the story of an absent grandfather from a less removed perspective than one would expect: “That’s enough for now / I would’ve never left you broken / I would’ve held you / things your father never could do.” It is both sweet-sounding and humanizing. A stringed interlude mixed with the lyrics makes this track seem very quaint.
In “We Build Then We Break,” we hear an impatient, self-interested strut that we’ve never yet witnessed from The Fray. Slade mumble-sings, “You’ve been quiet / there are things that you do not speak of / but if you stay gone a little longer / your keys wont work.” The background is more electronic, the key is minor and the wailing melody sounds a bit more like a Keane track that was not released as a single.
The album ends with the ironically titled “Happiness” — which ends up sounding more like the denial of its namesake. It is slow and poetic, laced with extreme metaphors nearly worthy of an eye-roll (“Happiness is a firecracker sitting on my headboard”), but it brings The Fray’s sophomore album full circle. Ending with a gospel choir backing him, Slade’s wooing voice almost sounds angelic.
The charm of The Fray is more or less accidental — not as smug or calculated as the balladry of the John Mayer types. Overall, the album scratches a bit more below the surface than The Fray’s previous attempt, revealing darker thoughts and presenting itself as a solid follow-up to the band’s debut. It wouldn’t be bad to play while studying or to passively endure on the radio.
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