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All Music Guide

This stuff is pure musical and lyrical inspiration.

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The Onion (A.V. Club)

The Frames' latest album, The Cost, contains only a handful of tracks like "Sad Songs," where the guitar springs along and the tempo stays steady... More typical is the title track, a noir-ish doom ballad in the Richard Thompson vein, designed to leave listeners stunned and morose.

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Lost At Sea

The Cost is an emotional trip worth taking, one that seems to move further inward in its focus and insight with each track.

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Boston Globe

The album is sophisticated and layered with deft orchestration. And yet, the band's songwriting and delivery display an earnestness and lack of pretension that's pure rock.

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NOW Magazine

Singer Glen Hansard moves from quiet introspection to earnest Jeremy Enigk-like wailing and back again, all the while reminding you just how rewarding a listen The Cost is.

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Slant Magazine

Epic in both sound and content, The Cost is both The Frames' most accomplished album and deeper and more rewarding than U2's recent work.

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Uncut

There's a nervy, frayed soulfulness to these songs. [Feb 2007, p.76]

Filter

Ambitious, beautiful and sorrowful--it's everything a fan of the gloriously sad stuff could hope for on a rainy day. [#24, p.97]

The Phoenix

The Cost... captures them at their best.

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Blender

Coldplay barely scratch these levels of exultation and agony. [Apr 2007, p.111]

PopMatters

However textured the musical journey The Cost offers, however, the album tends to lapse too excruciatingly into the darkness from which Hansard’s creativity seems to come.

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Hartford Courant

"The Cost"... comprises 10 tracks that range from hopeful (but triumphant!) to sorrowful (but triumphant!) to morose (but triumphant!).

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Under The Radar

Recording The Cost live has injected some feeling and adrenaline into an otherwise soft and ethereal album that somehow sizzles with underlying zeal and commitment. [#16, p.91]

Paste Magazine

While The Cost has as many majestic peaks as the Himalayas, the cumulative effect is exhaustingly monolithic. [Mar 2007, p.67]

Delusions of Adequacy

The Cost is hardly a poor album - in fact it's a quite good album - but after the release of so many gems, I find it difficult for it to completely measure up to the stiff competition.

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The New York Times

The music stays diverse and dynamic. [26 Feb 2007]

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Q Magazine

[It] is the stirring, rounded collection leader Glen Hansard has hinted at since they formed in 1990. [Feb 2007, p.99]

Los Angeles Times

The tempos are more uniform, and the huge arcs of all those ballads, hoisted high by fiddle, abstract guitar fragments and Glen Hansard's scratchy tenor, feel surprisingly safe.

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Alternative Press

It's a bit unfortunate that the Irishmen decided to keep their songwriting and musical prowess stagnant. [Mar 2007, p.143]

Magnet

Pleasant if unspectacular. [#74, p.96]

Billboard

The set as a whole lacks variety and rarely shifts tempo. [24 Feb 2007]

Pitchfork

While there's nothing wrong with a predictable approach when deployed with expertise, it's disappointing from a band like the Frames.

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Rolling Stone

The album slides into tedium and worse. [8 Mar 2007, p.86]

Playlouder

Alas, 'The Cost' is closer to the Noughties ipoddery of 'sensitive' folksters like Damien Rice or James Blunt than a Fleetwood Mac or a James Taylor.

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Entertainment Weekly

The Frames just about define overripe, both musically (imagine if Coldplay decided to make its power ballads even more bombastic) and lyrically. [23 Feb 2007, p.99]

Sputnikmusic

Despite pulling out all the stops towards the end, The Cost is everything The Frames usually eschew: it’s bland, it’s monotonous and it barely achieves a tempo shift across forty-four minutes.

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Stylus Magazine

The Cost is bleached of any sort of lifeblood, stumbling out of the gate and moping towards the finish line.

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Spin

A tepid effort that bogs down their previously rugged and introspective rock with power-ballad vibrato, lurid over-orchestration, and petulantly vague lyrics. [Feb 2007, p.83]

Austin Chronicle

Everything about The Cost is inflated and with little payoff, a blight for a band worth so much more.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 14 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Todd H. gave it an8:
Uneven, but with several stand-out songs, most especially People Get Ready, which deserves far more international airplay than it has received.

Matthew P. gave it a10:
A fine album! Glen hansards voice echoes a sadness that only a few artists can match. If you're after an arena band, this is not it! This is real people singing about real problems! Real music!

Ger D gave it a10:
An amazing album that requires several repeated spins to fully appreciate.

david h gave it an8:
The Cost is beautifully written, produced, and performed. Yes it's sad and slow--the tempo rarely breaks pace--but the emotion and dynamics of the performances create the peaks and valleys. Great album. One of their best.

ag gave it an8:
not their best but sure as hell not anything as half-baked and insincere as coldplay. matt d. below is just plain lazy in his comparisons.

marek i gave it a10:
Just another great album of Frames!

timmy d gave it a9:
maybe not as visceral as their previous efforts but still a load better than most stadium rock pap out there. sit down coldplay, retire u2, glen hansard and his men bring intelligence and passion to a stunning effort on the always reliable anti- records.

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