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This stuff is pure musical and lyrical inspiration.
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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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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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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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UncutThere's a nervy, frayed soulfulness to these songs. [Feb 2007, p.76]
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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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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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FilterAmbitious, beautiful and sorrowful--it's everything a fan of the gloriously sad stuff could hope for on a rainy day. [#24, p.97]
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The Cost... captures them at their best.
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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]
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Under The RadarRecording 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]
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Paste MagazineWhile The Cost has as many majestic peaks as the Himalayas, the cumulative effect is exhaustingly monolithic. [Mar 2007, p.67]
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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 music stays diverse and dynamic. [26 Feb 2007]
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"The Cost"... comprises 10 tracks that range from hopeful (but triumphant!) to sorrowful (but triumphant!) to morose (but triumphant!).
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BlenderColdplay barely scratch these levels of exultation and agony. [Apr 2007, p.111]
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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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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 PressIt's a bit unfortunate that the Irishmen decided to keep their songwriting and musical prowess stagnant. [Mar 2007, p.143]
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MagnetPleasant if unspectacular. [#74, p.96]
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BillboardThe set as a whole lacks variety and rarely shifts tempo. [24 Feb 2007]
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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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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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Rolling StoneThe album slides into tedium and worse. [8 Mar 2007, p.86]
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Entertainment WeeklyThe 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]
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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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The Cost is bleached of any sort of lifeblood, stumbling out of the gate and moping towards the finish line.
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SpinA 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]
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Everything about The Cost is inflated and with little payoff, a blight for a band worth so much more.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 13 out of 15
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Mixed: 1 out of 15
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Negative: 1 out of 15
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Jan 4, 2012
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ToddH.Sep 17, 2008Uneven, but with several stand-out songs, most especially People Get Ready, which deserves far more international airplay than it has received.
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MatthewP.Feb 26, 2008