Review Summary: Finding a solid and true song is impossible and unheard of on this album.
Having style and substance is quite hard in the music world. Arguing over what bands/artists have both, is practically useless. The idea of substance is thrown around so much in our society that you begin to lose focus on what is actually good. Your definition is skewed to some sort of mind controlling media … cloud should I say? Nonetheless discovering the definition, comes from digging deeper and deeper into the music, and trust me folks there’s not much to dig here.
Straight from Denver, Colorado comes the four piece alternative rock band,
The Fray. Shortly after becoming an official band, the band saw immediate success.
“How to Save a Life” the first single of their debut, gained much popularity from being aired on the TV show ‘Scrubs’. Second in line was
“Over My Head (Cable Car)”, which found itself among top artists on the Billboard Top Hundred list. As the popularity grew, The Fray started announcing tour dates, and to this day The Fray has had huge media success, selling out shows across the world.
So all this talk of success, and popularity, you’d probably like to know what all the fuss is about. The album opens up with,
“She Is” a song driven with a slow paced piano. At first the music in focus doesn’t teeter towards the dark side, it holds up till you engage into the lyrical content and the blandness of the band in general. Whilst lead singer, Isaac Slang holds a clean and true tone throughout the music, it doesn’t seem to fulfill its duty. The lyrical content is far below average, and holds little to no actual emotion. Basic angst teenage relationships are what you find here, and the words used to describe them are dry and boring.
Getting past frontman flaws, you dive into an ocean of bland and generic musicianship. When you think of The Fray, a few thoughts come up; one of those is the piano the band has. Besides the vocals it’s the most popular instrument in the band. While being merely entertaining at times, the piano lacks in style and substance. The more songs you listen to, the more you realize the piano never really leaves its ground, never does anything new. No sweeps, no tempo change, equals a bland presentation of piano.
Alongside the piano are the guitars and the drum set. The songs rely on simple guitar work that never impresses you nor holds your interest. Soft clean tones play throughout each song, followed by the same distorted power chord, choruses. Drums don’t do much different in terms of innovation. The songs are plagued with similar fills and verse beats, and ultimately never really sound good.
Billboard leaders, The Fray hold much style but show no substance. Their album lacks horribly from boring song structures, and bland writing. Finding a solid and true song is impossible and unheard of on this album. It runs for 46 minutes too long, and holds absolutely no redeeming features. Maybe their next will be something, who knows.
