Fray: The Fray

The Fray was formed in 2002, and currently consists of Isaac Slade the lead vocalist and pianist, Joe King on guitar and vocals, Dave Welsh on guitar, and Ben Wysocki on drums and percussion. They have no official bassist, but recently have been touring with bassist Jimmy Stofer, also a member of the band Dualistics. While many critics compare the band to Coldplay, the band lists its main influences as U2, Better Than Ezra and Counting Crows.

The Denver-based band The band is known internationally for their single How To Save A Life, which made the top three of the Billboard Hot 100 and was also a hit single in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The band's debut single Over My Head [Cable Car] was also a top ten hit in the United States, as well as a hit in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Their debut album, How to Save a Life, became the best selling digital album of all time, and has sold over 2 million copies. The album reached the top fifteen of the Billboard 200 album charts and was certified double platinum.

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. International tours and platinum-selling singles may have turned the Fray into a superstar act, but the actual songcraft remains virtually unchanged, with songs like "You Found Me" and "Enough for Now" sounding eerily similar to their predecessors. Those parallels are strengthened by producers Aaron Johnson and Mike Flynn, both of whom helmed How to Save a Life and repeat the job here to predictable effect. What's different, then, is the occasional "widening" of the Fray's sound; the rock numbers are slightly louder (culminating in a percussive, distorted breakdown during "We Build Then We Break") and the ballads somewhat softer, with "Ungodly Hour" standing out as the sparsest of the bunch. The band seems uncomfortable with either extreme, however, either overshooting the rockers or reducing the ballads to little more than Isaac Slade's zealous vocals, which are often so garbled with angsty passion that they might as well be caricaturing the American accent. Like the rest of his bandmates, Slade is most comfortable in the middle, where the Fray comfortably churns out the album's best numbers: the melancholy, minor-keyed "Absolute"; "Syndicate" (whose guitar riff in 6/4 time is perhaps the disc's quirkiest moment); and "You Found Me." It's testament to the band's appeal that "You Found Me" became a Top 10 single before The Fray was even released, but that likely speaks to its familiarity - this is, after all, the equivalent of How to Save a Life, Pt. 2 - rather than any purported originality.
Tracks

1 Syndicate
2 Absolute
3 You Found Me
4 Say When
5 Never Say Never
6 Where the Story Ends
7 Enough for Now
8 Ungodly Hour
9 We Build Then We Break
10 Happiness

Lyrics to Syndicate :

Halfway around the world
Lies the one thing that you want
Buried in the ground, hundreds of miles down
First thing that arises in your mind while you awake
Bending you til you break
Let me hold you now

Baby close your eyes
Don't open til the morning light
Baby don't forget
You haven't lost it all yet

Don't know what your made of
Til the one thing that you want
To come in with the dawn and suddenly changes
Monday, syndicate me, its everyone the same
But all we've lost to the flame
Listen to me now

Baby close your eyes
Don't open til the morning light
Don't ever forget
We haven't lost it all yet
All we know for sure
Is all that we are fighting for
Baby don't forget
We haven't lost it all yet

Someday when this is over
We mix it up, no answer
For now its when I hold her
We are closer, we are closer
We are closer, we are closer

Baby close your eyes
Don't open til the morning light
Don't ever forget
We haven't lost it all yet
And all we know for sure
Is all that we are fighting for
Baby don't forget
We haven't lost it all yet

We are closer
we are closer
(We haven't lost it all yet)
Now we are closer
(We haven't lost it all yet)
We are closer

Lyrics to Absolute :
I've seen this one before, the girl she gets away
Everybody knows it but no one tries to stop it
Cause she barely even knows him but if she could see inside
Everything is quiet as she waits to tell him who she is

Is this all we get to be absolute

Quiet but I'm sure there is something here
Tell me everything cause I want to hear

It's a kiss sits upon on her lips that waits for planes and battle ships
She wants to be a dancer and he has got a picture
On his wall and it's a sailor in a new port every night
Yet man was born to trouble like sparks fly upwards innocent

Is this all we get to be absolute

Quiet but I'm sure there is something here
Tell me everything cause I want to hear

All we are and all we want
40 years come and gone
All we are in photographs
Will never be taken

Quiet but I'm sure there is something here
Tell me everything cause I want you here
Quiet but I'm sure there is something here
Tell me everything cause I want to hear

Lyrics to You Found Me :
I found God
On the corner of First and Amistad
Where the west
Was all but won
All alone
Smoking his last cigarette
I said, Where you been?
He said, Ask anything.

Where were you
When everything was falling apart?
All my days
Were spent by the telephone
That never rang
And all I needed was a call
It never came
To the corner of First and Amistad

Lost and insecure
You found me, you found me
Lying on the floor
Surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait?
Where were you, where were you?
Just a little late
You found me, You found me

In the end
Everyone ends up alone
Losing her
The only one who's ever known
Who I am
Who I'm not, and who I want to be
No way to know
How long she will be next to me

Lost and insecure
You found me, you found me
Lying on the floor
Surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait?
Where were you, where were you?
Just a little late
You found me, You found me

Early morning
The city breaks
I've been calling
For years and years and years and years
And you never left me no messages
You never sent me no letters
You got some kind of nerve
Taking all I want

Lost and insecure
You found me, you found me
Lying on the floor
Where were you, where were you?

Lost and insecure
You found me, you found me
Lying on the floor
Surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait?
Where were you, where were you?
Just a little late
You found me, You found me

Why'd you have to wait
To find me, to find me?

Lyrics to Say When :
I see you there, don't know where you come from
Unaware but you're still from someone
Don't Appear to care that I saw you, and I want you
What's your name? Cause I have to know it
You let me in and begin to show it
I'm terrified cause you're headed straight for it, might Get it

Hear the song playin on background
All alone but you're turnin up now
And everyone is risin to meet ya, to greet you
Turn around and you're walkin toward me
I'm breakin down and you're breathin slowly
Say the word and I will be your man, your man, say when

(Chorus)
And my own two hands will comfort you tonight, tonight
Say when
And my own two arms will carry you tonight, tonight

Come close and then even closer
We bring it in but we go no further
We're seperate two ghosts in one mirror, no mearer
Later on if it turns to chaos, hurricane comin all around us
See the crack, pull it back from the window, you stay low, say when

(Chorus)
And my own two hands will comfort you tonight, tonight
Say when
And my own two arms will carry you tonight, tonight

Come across you're lost and broken
You're coming to, but you're slow and waking
You Start to shake, you still haven't spoken, what happened
They're comin back and you just don't know it
and you wanna cry but there's nothin comin
They're gonna push until you give in, say when
Now we're here and it turns to chaos, hurricane comin all around us
They're gonna crack, don't you back from the window, you stay slow
It all began with the man and country
Every plan turns another century around again
And another nation fallen

Maybe god can be on both sides of the gun
never gone, understood why some of us never get it so good, so good
Some are less fortunate than us
All the less we'll go after us
Never stops until we give in, give in, say when

(Chorus)
And my own two hands will comfort you tonight, tonight
Say when
And my own two arms will carry you tonight, tonight
say when

Outro
And my own two hands will comfort you tonight, tonight...

Lyrics to Never Say Never :
Some things we don't talk about
better do without
just hold a smile
we're falling in and out of love
the same damn problem

together all the while
you can never say never
when we don't know why
time and time again
younger now then we were before
don't let me go,
don't let me go,
don't let me go,
don't let me go,
don't let me go,
don't let me go

picture you're the queen of everything
as far as the i can see
under your command
i will be your gaurdening
when all is crumbling
steady your hand

you can never say never
when we don't know why
time and time again
younger now then we were before
don't let me go,
don't let me go,
don't let me go,
don't let me go,
don't let me go,
don't let me go

we're falling apart
and coming together again and again
we're coming apart
but we hold it together
hold it together, together again

don't let me go,
don't let me go,
don't let me go,
don't let me go,
don't let me go,
don't let me go(x2)

Lyrics to Where The Story Ends :
Trying not to lose my head but I have never been this scared before
Tell you what I'll do instead, lay my body down on the floor
To forget what I've done, silhouette til the good lord come
All we know is distance
We're close and then we run
Kiss away the difference
I know you hate this one
Trying not to lose your own, boxing up everything, you've got
All you ever knew of home, you're scared scared to see
Your mother there in the door, you wonder where did the years go
All we know is distance
We're close and then we run
Kiss away the difference
I know you hate this one
But this is how the story ends
Or have we just begun
To kiss away the difference
I know you hate this one
The violins make no sound
And I begin to feel the ground
All we know is distance
We're close and then we run
Kiss away the difference
I know you hate this one
But this is where the story ends
Or have we just begun
To kiss away the difference
I know you hate this one