The Fray

The Fray is the modern-rock equivalent of Everybody Loves Raymond, a series that approached everyday situations with a shrewd exactitude, managing to be salient without resorting to bawdiness or gimmickry. Even Raymond's detractors were eventually disarmed by the show's benign disposition and lack of pretense.

Details

The Fray

Related Content

• The Fray Scars & Stories: A track-by-track breakdown from Isaac Slade and Joe King
  February 7, 2012
• The Fray posts "The Fighter," another track from new album
  January 10, 2012
• The Fray at Red Rocks on Friday, May 11
  January 27, 2012
• The Fray's new album, Scars & Stories, due out 2/7/12. Listen to "Heartbeat," the first single
  October 11, 2011
• The Fray treats fan in San Jose to an unexpected pizza party/performance in her living room
  December 2, 2011

More About

• The Fray
• Isaac Slade
• Everybody Loves Raymond

The Fray is sure to elicit a similar reaction with its excellent major-label debut, How to Save a Life. Isaac Slade's airy tenor breathes life into introspective, forlorn narratives and inspiriting appeals touching on everything from futilely attempting to intervene for a friend ("How to Save a Life") to contending with the anxiety of ending up alone ("Heaven Forbid") to trying to outrun the past ("Fall Away"). And Life is tastefully fleshed out with subtle guitar flourishes and a rhythm section whose acute sense of dynamics perfectly complement Slade's austere piano runs.

As long as the act continues to stave off pretension, it will remain respectably above the fray -- you know, the kind of band that everybody can't help but love.