The Fragile Army
by The Polyphonic Spree
  • Record Label: TVT
  • Release Date: Jun 19, 2007
User Score
8.4

Universal acclaim- based on 29 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 25 out of 29
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 29
  3. Negative: 2 out of 29

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  1. jyotirmayadas
    Dec 14, 2007
    7
    The "Fragile Army" has some great moments here and there and some not-so-great moments. All together though, it's a good album worth buying and listening to, and thank god they got rid of the sheets they were wearing!
  2. OmarC.
    Aug 27, 2007
    9
    Some of the most inspiring albums ever heard... first listened on a shop, and couldn't take my hands off it... just caught me!!! blew my mind away... congratulations!!!
  3. MariaW.
    Aug 13, 2007
    10
    All the songs make me so happy!! Expecially running away, i could listen to it all day, so could the rest of my family!!!!!!
  4. MathewR.
    Aug 2, 2007
    8
    Not as good as Together we`re Heavy, but nonetheless a good album worth 8/10
  5. EthanP
    Jul 30, 2007
    9
    I love that the users' ratings are directly inproportionate to the critics' ratings. Y'all can take only so much of shallow lyrics about the sun and a day/today. The Spree might've been a one-hit-on-the-art-scene wonder, but the truest of their fans will hail this as the best compilation yet. Multiple five-star songs Hopefullly not their masterpiece--because that will I love that the users' ratings are directly inproportionate to the critics' ratings. Y'all can take only so much of shallow lyrics about the sun and a day/today. The Spree might've been a one-hit-on-the-art-scene wonder, but the truest of their fans will hail this as the best compilation yet. Multiple five-star songs Hopefullly not their masterpiece--because that will be a better experience than even this album. Easily one of the best discs of the year.… Expand
  6. EriqC
    Jul 24, 2007
    10
    I'm ready for my Kool-Aid now.
  7. SandraS.
    Jul 17, 2007
    10
    Check out the video to Running Away...that had me hooked.
  8. RobertD
    Jul 6, 2007
    10
    this is some amazingly contagious work... alas another band for me to fall in love with
  9. JennyMcG
    Jun 22, 2007
    10
    So happy, so fun, and kind of darker than I thought it'd be. Loved it!
  10. MichaelW
    Jun 20, 2007
    10
    I cannot believe the people who bash the Spree. They must be really sad people, or have never seen them live. These are great songs and fit right into their catalog
  11. RaycerX
    Jun 20, 2007
    9
    Another Tour de force of symphonic melodies that pull you in almost immediately. Forget the jaded music press. They don't listen to music like regular people do and so some have been very skeptical of this CD. The Spree have brilliant melodies and an optimism that are sorely missing in today's music. That makes them truly unique and this album makes them even more so. Go out and Another Tour de force of symphonic melodies that pull you in almost immediately. Forget the jaded music press. They don't listen to music like regular people do and so some have been very skeptical of this CD. The Spree have brilliant melodies and an optimism that are sorely missing in today's music. That makes them truly unique and this album makes them even more so. Go out and buy it. It's well worth the money.… Expand
  12. SkyWeapon
    Jun 15, 2007
    9
    Their best piece to date
  13. BrendanD
    Jun 13, 2007
    10
    It's hard being a Polyphonic Spree fan, especially where the jaded critical press is concerned. To many critics and fans, music, to be great, has to have some sort of ridiculous substance to it; these Literati have co-opted pop music, insisting that anything short of electronic hootenannies or impenetrable maths is completely useless. They fail to see the genius of simple, and simply It's hard being a Polyphonic Spree fan, especially where the jaded critical press is concerned. To many critics and fans, music, to be great, has to have some sort of ridiculous substance to it; these Literati have co-opted pop music, insisting that anything short of electronic hootenannies or impenetrable maths is completely useless. They fail to see the genius of simple, and simply written, sugar-sweet tunes from ABBA, the Archies, and the Monkees. So too did they castigate the Spree for their supposedly feigned optimism and cult-white robes when the band first caught notice in 2002. But that was mostly because the indie scholars of Pitchfork, Stylus, and especially Coke Machine Glow didn't really know what to make of these freaks. Were they hippies? Indie-popsters? Ork-pop dorks? And why did they have to dress like that, anyways? Well, the Spree have lasted longer than most novelty and obscuro artifactors probably thought they would, and their sound has expanded from hippie-dippy to orchestral bombast to a new, harder rocking sound that still manages to drudge up some of the first true experimentalism that's ever been laid upon the masses. They've maintained that punk spirit leader Tim DeLaughter first embodied with the psychedelic-punk band Tripping Daisy in the '90s -- an aesthetical "who-cares" attitude that seems to genuinely permeate his being. Unfortunately for DeLaughter, his songwriting has never been as profound as on Daisy's 1998 masterpiece "Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb," and he's not getting any more profound as time goes by. On "Sonic Boom," originally recorded by DeLaughter's former band and covered by the Spree on last year's interim EP "Wait," DeLaughter croons his most meaningful lyrics: "I wanna be just as good / I wanna make it better / I wanna see you sideways." Sometimes, it is indeed the simplest words that are the best. This is not the case with the Spree, however. Lyrically, "The Fragile Army" is atrocious, if not a downright mess. Simple lyrics like "We try hard / we crawl far" just don't do it for me, let alone the afore-mentioned Literati who will hate this record with ever fiber of their beings. Anybody who actually cares about this, however, misses the point entirely. Have you ever read how stupid the lyrics are to "Last Train to Clarksville?" How about a more venerated psych-pop masterpiece, "Penny Lane?" The latter has some of the dumbest lyrics ever put to pen: "Then the fireman rushes in / From the pouring rain / Very strange." Sir Paul, that is idiocy; a retarded monkey could've come up with something very similar. But do we care? No! "Penny Lane" is the quintessential ork-pop single, and anyone whose head isn't bobbing by the end is far too serious for pop music, anyways, and should probably go back to experimenting with Robert Schneider's non-Pythagorean scale (which is actually a really intriguing concept; but alas, that's another argument for another time). What matters for the Polyphonic Spree and its "Fragile Army" is that it can whip the entire listening audience into a frenzy. This is what it looks and sounds like when the psychedelic balloon bursts and the ego shatters. With heavier guitars, surprisingly quiet moments, and an unrelenting optimism that, for this record at least, allows the bad things in before summarily executing them and bringing about newer, better feelings, "The Fragile Army" stands as the Spree's finest release to date, chock-full of enough straight-out-of-the-cane sugar and psychedelic mushrooms to make anybody feel the euphoria of happy-go-lucky pop music.… Expand
  14. JimM
    Jun 13, 2007
    8
    Together We're Heavy is much more personal of an album, but the hyped up rukus of Fragile Army is what will put PolySpree on the map.

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
68

Generally favorable reviews - based on 22 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 22
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 22
  3. Negative: 1 out of 22
  1. cokemachineglow
    52
    DeLaughter needs to be more personal; already having a dozen people yelling at you distances the ideas they express, but emptying those ideas of any meaning isn’t the answer.
    Read full review
  2. NOW Magazine
    20
    The novelty of it all has quickly worn thin.
    Read full review
  3. Entertainment Weekly
    58
    There's now an almost garish cast to the proceedings. [22 Jun 2007, p.71]
See all critic reviews »