Track Listing

1. She Is
2. Over My Head (Cable Car)
3. How To Save A Life
4. All At Once
5. Fall Away
6. Heaven Forbid
7. Look After You
8. Hundred
9. Vienna
10. Dead Wrong
11. Little House
12. Trust Me
13. Unsaid

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2465 in Music
• Released on: 2007-02-19
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
On their full-length debut, Denver quartet the Fray don't exactly reinvent the wheel, but those looking for melodic, mid-tempo pop could do far worse. That said, the 12 songs on How To Save a Life are barely distinguishable from each other. If you like one, you'll probably like the rest (and you'll be in the company of thousands of other listeners.) If you don't like one, it's unlikely the others will change your mind. Formed in 2002, the band consists of Isaac Slade (vocals, piano), Joe King (guitar, vocals), Ben Wysocki (drums), and Dave Welsh (guitar). Since their formation, the Fray have elicited comparisons to British groups like Coldplay and Keane, and American ones like Counting Crows and the Wallflowers. They've also toured with Weezer and Ben Folds and had songs--like "Over My Head (Cable Car)"--featured on such popular programmes as Grey's Anatomy. Though they incorporate guitar, unlike Keane, Slade's expert piano playing is prominent on every track. To his credit, he can also hit the high notes just as gracefully as Coldplay's Chris Martin, but therein lies the rub: As with the band as a whole, Slade hasn't quite found his own voice yet. How To Save a Life is polished and professional, bland and inoffensive. It goes down easy, but evaporates into the ether just as quickly. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

CD Description
This Denver-based quartet mixes the sweeping, arena-ready feel of Coldplay with the sincere, radio-friendly folk-rock of bands like Counting Crows for a highly melodic brand of palatable pop. The Fray's first release, HOW TO SAVE A LIFE, is packed with songs that push all the right mass-appeal buttons: sumptuous piano, swaying mid-tempo rhythms, anthemic choruses, and alternately soaring and meandering melodies sungin a high, emotive voice. Bridging stadium rock, emo, and classic rock on the order of U2, the Fray makes an assured first statement on their debut.

Customer Reviews

Solid album
I bought this album purely on the basis of 'How to Save a Life', which was so powerfully used on an episode of Scrubs it made me cry. It was stuck in my head for ages, and I hoped that it would be released in the UK. Although it's now been played to death on the radio, I still love it, and can and have listened to it over and over again.
I bought the album just over a week ago and it hasn't left my car stereo since; it's perfect driving music, nice MOR pop rock, with intelligent lyrics and hand tapping rhythms (would be toe tapping but not a good idea in a car!).
The Fray are similar to bands like Semisonic and Snow Patrol, with a bit of Keane mixed in, so if you like them then give the album a try. There are a couple of duff tracks - Hundred and Vienna are so dull and dreary I always skip over them. In my opinion, the stand out tracks (apart from HTSAL) are Over My Head; an upbeat melodic pop/rock song, and Look After You, a flawless emotional rock ballad. In total, out of 13 songs, only 2 of them are no good, which compared to a lot of albums is pretty solid.

Simply marvellous
I'm sure a lot of people will be tempted to buy this album by the recent success of How To Save A Life, and if you like that song, then this album will be more of the same, plus some other things.

The album opens with She Is, which is one of several songs that The Fray manage to produce, which on first listening appears not bad, and every subsequent listen makes it sound better and better, and it is an excellent opening to the album. The next song is Over My Head, the second single by The Fray to be released in the UK, and is another magnificent song, and extremely catchy.

The third song is How To Save A Life, and if you haven't heard it, in my opinion it is another magnificent song, and one that I would tip for the Song of 2007, despite it only being April.

The next two songs are All At Once and Fall Away, which are of the same sort of style as Over My Head, and, although they may feel a little repetitive, I still love them both, and Fall Away is, in my opinion, the best song on the album, and one that should definitely be released as a third single.

The style begins to change at this point. Heaven Forbid is a calmer song, with a more pop-music-style influence, and Look After You is similar, and equally catchy. Hundred opens with a piano solo, and turns into an almost balladic piece.

The last four songs in the album, Vienna, Dead Wrong, Little House and Trust Me, and these are fairly unremarkable, although they still fit in with the general feel of the album.

Overall, I believe that this is one of the best album releases of the year so far, with some of the best pop-rock songs I have heard for a long time. I would definitely recommend it to anybody who enjoys this genre of music, and if you enjoyed How To Save A Life, this album will almost certainly provide you with at least one more favourite to add to your collection. Certainly one to buy.

Good, but too same-y
I bought this album after hearing 'How to save a life' used brilliantly on 'Scrubs' and I wasn't disappointed.

For the first 4-5 tracks I was thinking: "Wow, this is an amazing album," however, by the time the album finished I had stopped listening to it, all the tracks seemed to blend into one-another. It has some tracks of real quality in it such as 'She is', 'How to save a life', and 'All at once'.

I would recommend this album to most people, but beware that there is a possibilty that you may not always listen to every track, since you may get bored of the style after a while and want to change to something different.

If there was more variation in the style and tempo of the songs, then this would definately get 5 stars. As it is, it only merits a 4. Good, but not enough.