How To Save A Life

Wrapped around sparkling melodies and the intricacies of the vocabulary of lust, love and modern ennui, here is the best selling digital album of 2006.

In an era defined by technology The Fray have used the internet and the media of Television at the best of their advantage, but, in total contrast with the digital quality of their commercial success, what makes this band appealing to so many people is the very human quality of their lyrics and feelings.

Mixing a typical all American feeling for heartfelt declarations and the undulated beauty of melodies that owe a lot to bands like Coldplay, The Fray had been able to create a small phenomenon.

Having received the seal of approval from top shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Scrubs, the big audience had come carried over by memories of a televised heartbreak.

So is this success of public (the critic has been a bit less enthusiastic so far) justified? Is there something more behind the façade of good guys with good hearts and songs to match their wholesomeness?

I say, yes.

Don’t get me wrong, The Fray will never be the avant-garde of Rock&Roll, but they are able to weave intricate melodies around the simplicity and complexity of human emotions and Isaac Slade’s vocals are a perfect vehicle for this kind of (upper class) suburban melancholia.

With a timbre that is reminiscent of the early Counting Crows, he is able to inject a healthy dose of sadness to lyrics that are, thankfully, rarely self indulgent and that are able to translate the many nuances of the human heart.

The best song of the album is undoubtedly the much celebrated How to save a life, it grows from a whispering piano to a soaring anthemic beauty and the fragile desperation of losing someone that has been much loved is something everybody can relate.

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life.

It’s hard not to be moved and Isaac Slade’s broken accents can carve the harshest of hearts.

The rest of the album move along similar routes, but it has enough variety to guarantee that The Fray will not be put into the one hit wonder category.

The main feeling about this record and this band is a sense of space, a breezy quality of ethereal grace. The critics may have dismiss this record for just a sound track for the heartbroken that have no patience to find out about Conor Oberst, but don’t get fooled.

There is beauty in simplicity and sometime, the best stories are the one that tells you exactly what you need to hear.

It's always have and never hold
You've begun to feel like home
What's mine is yours to leave or take
What's mine is yours to make your own

Oh, oh
Be my baby
Ohhhhh
Oh, oh
Be my baby
I'll look after you

by Laila