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The Fray's sophomore release picks up where How to Save a Life left off, reprising the same blend of piano-led ballads and midtempo pop/rock that helped establish the band in 2005.
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The Fray is a more angst-filled and melancholy set than you'd expect from a group following up a double-platinum debut, populated with songs about lost love and tortured souls. But hand-wringing music sells.
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The Denver foursome is spectacularly anonymous: poignant enough to bring out the waterworks, but generic enough not to get in the way of someone else’s story--making them the perfect soundtrack for prime-time melodrama.
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Life had a handful of standouts, but follow-up The Fray is all blah, all the time: more minor-key melodies, more dreary tempos, more of singer-pianist Isaac Slade's spiceless sore-throat croon.
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The group doesn't stray far from the template, turning in another batch of hooky mid-tempo songs that are pretty without necessarily sounding distinctive.
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Slick yet soulless second effort from Denver’s Answer to Coldplay.
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A thoroughly professional, exquisitely produced, and utterly soulless album.
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The band's piano rock suggests a more earnest, less arty Coldplay. The Fray are going for introspection and dramatic sweep but don't rise above bland pleasantries.
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UncutNot only a radio-friendly unit-shifter, but also a bona fide guilty pleasure. [Mar 2009, p.85]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 31 out of 41
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Mixed: 3 out of 41
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Negative: 7 out of 41
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Sep 30, 2013
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Mar 19, 2012
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Apr 12, 2011