Released in 2012,
Scars & Stories saw
the Fray expanding on the size and scope of their signature blend of American trad rock-meets-'90s alt-pop with the aid of
Pearl Jam and
Bruce Springsteen producer Brendan O'Brien. For 2014's
Helios, the band enlisted help from
Stuart Price (
the Killers,
Madonna), and his electronic flourishes serve as the driving force behind their fourth long-player.
Helios begins innocuously enough with "Hold My Hand," a straight-up, anthem generator-spawned arm-waver that pairs a safe, circular, entirely familiar chord progression with a melody that returns the favor (a description that applies to most if not all of the ten songs that follow), before unleashing the album's first single, "Love Don't Die," a digitized boot-stomper that leans hard on the
Kings of Leon/
Black Keys side of the
Fray spectrum. Flirtations with disco ("Give It Away") and pure
Killers-cloned electro-pop ("Hurricane") follow, but
the Fray never sound as comfortable as they do when they're dishing out relatively generic yet undeniably impassioned slabs of
Springsteen,
Train,
Goo Goo Dolls, and
Coldplay-inspired, open-highway treacle like "Our Last Days" and "Wherever This Goes." Even the middling power ballad "Break Your Plans" and the easy and convivial "Wherever This Goes," the latter a slick mash-up of
the Lumineers "Ho Hey" and something off of
Fleetwood Mac's Tusk, outshine
Helios' more experimental (sonically speaking) moments, due in large part to the fact that they sound like the work of a band, and not a band working way too hard to sound relevant. [
Helios was also released on vinyl.] ~ James Christopher Monger