After successful singles such as “Over My Head (Cable Car)” and “How to Save a Life,” The Fray has created catchy anthems once again with their new album, Scars and Stories, which came out Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012. On this album, the piano rock band from Denver explores the idea of loneliness and heartache and how these “scars and stories” relate to life and love.
The first track on the album, “Heartbeat,” is an upbeat anthem talking about love as a fire that burns through the storms of life.
This song is a great one to start out the album, because it gives listeners positive vibes of resilience, both in the lyrics and musical style.
Another great song on the album is “Run for Your Life,” a song with a lot of dynamics and complex guitar rifts. Lyrically, it speaks of letting go of your worries and running the race of life and not giving up.
Also, “I Can Barely Say” is a good-quality song. This is a more melancholy track, with mostly stringed instruments and vocals composing it. Not only is the music melancholy, but the lyrics are too, talking about finding the way back home when you’ve been away for too long and how it can be difficult to express the feelings that come with that.
In the song “Munich,” despite it being a bit too repetitive at parts, it has good strings and percussion, creating an intensified feeling in the verses that eventually builds up to a full-out sound.
Finally, the album ends with one of the best songs, “Be Still.” This is a slower anthem that resembles a hymn, reassuring that even through dark times and confusion in life, you can be still and know that a higher being is watching over you.
With the first listen of this album, I found it to be a little bit noisy and repetitive, but as I listened to the songs over the course of a few days, I found a sort of attachment to certain tracks. I tend to like a lot of dynamics in my music, where the loud moments and quiet moments meet each other, not just consistently one or the other.
So, some of these tracks weren’t as satisfying, because they were consistently loud and a bit harsh sounding. I find that Isaac Slade’s voice is best shown in his softer works, where the strength of his voice contrasts with the tenderness and quietness of the music.
However, overall, I deem this album a success, because it conveys a message, both musically and lyrically, that no one is alone in the battles of life, and scars don’t have to be a place of shame, but can be things that create stories to lift others up.
