The Fray Barely Manages To Stay Off Life Support

One thing The Fray has had a grip on throughout its under ten year recording career is how to sell the drama. "Over My Head (Cable Car)" was lousy with tension that was impossible to turn away from. The line "With eight seconds left in overtime" drove the urgency home. Ditto for "How To Save a Life". There was this compelling mix of skillful ambience and enough heart dragging melodrama that, like with any good romance novel, you couldn't put it down. For its new single "Love Don't Die" these guys have managed to pull off a feat that I don't think many bands can equal. They take a life affirming concept and still make it sound like it's barely managing to breathe. For example the chorus harmonizing makes me think of ghostly spirits that have sprung from the former site of the body. I know. I know. "Love Don't Die" demands that at least some element of the song be eerie. To his credit Dave Welsh is a piston on lead guitar. Momentum builds, or gives us all hope that it might. The linchpin message is...well...see song's title if I fail to be witty enough to push the point across. The first verse teaches us that, in love (how might that be different from any other area of life might I ask?) actions speak louder than words. The Egyptian pyramids aren't as old as that truism. In other words no reason to reinvent the wheel, is there fellas? Ben Wysocki eventually adds his brand of ballsy on drums. Just when we where getting comfy with the guitar. Later on in the song, lead vocalist Isaac Slade introduces the notion of love as some kind of twisted chain letter. That's the unintentional take away I'm getting anyway. "She can break it up, shake your money down, you can box it in, bury it in the ground. You can close it off and turn away, try to keep it down, six feet in the ground, but love don't die. There first ideas in place hint at a woman who either wants to put the skids on the relationship or take her man to the cleaners. Fair enough so far. It is kind of darkly humorous that the band waxing harmonious on how to save a life would now be tossing off burial imagery. Sure that's used in the service of proving the point that you can't kill love but part of the time it's as if they foursome is telling us to think of love as a bomb that one must toss aside before it makes fertilizer out of you. Ever played the game hot potato as a kid? Welcome back to those heady (or not) times. Why not just say you can't fold, mutilate or spindle it either. That's an awful lot of emotional contortion work for something that's miraculously pure of heart and intention. There are songs I've heard during my music listening years that are just long enough to get their points across before politely conceding to the blissful (yes it does exist) sound of silence (No offense or copyright mangling intended for Simon and Garfunkel). "We're The Same" a track by Matthew Sweet from the '90s is one example. Creates all kinds of '60s retro yummy and then at a hair over 3 minutes, disappears impishly back into the music miasma. Another is "Spirits In The Material World" from The Police. Not even 3 minutes before the three of them decide they've conveyed what they meant to convey. What's creepy here(yes it's post Halloween now but bear with) is the layout of the beat isn't even clear until after the bridge. Then you realize how your brain was supposed to processing the flow the whole time. "Love Don't Die" suffers from the problem that even 3 minutes 4 seconds is too long for what's strictly a drawn out tribute to a theme that's been trampled on so much I wonder how it has the life force left to lift a pinky finger. This song can be found on the band's new "Helios" effort. I have a hard time managing to figure out why you'd want the album if the energy level remains this tepid throughout but that's one for the court of public opinion to decide. In The Ear Buzz jurisdiction I find The Fray guilty of not managing to work up a worthy enough lather for their return to the scene. I sentence them to listen to the collected works of AFI. There's a band that can remind people of how you induce the shivers in under 3 minutes. Want Exhibit A? Listen closely to "Love Like Winter". "He bit my lip and drank my war" ranks high on the yick-o-meter but revulsion counts as feeling something. In the history of recorded music "Love Don't Die" deserves a mercy killing.