After a two year wait, The Fray is finally releasing their newest album, “Helios”.

Helios was different from the band’s previous albums. They were really exploring with their music with this one. They had few songs that seemed to be moving toward more of a pop or electric feel instead of their normal alternative ballad feel.

The Fray is a pop rock band, but in this album they really brought out their pop feel. On other albums they lean  more towards alternative.

Lyrically they did a good job. They brought lyrics that actually mean something other than sex and drugs. They are a refresher from normal pop music.

Vocally they’ve always lacked a little bit. Isaac Slade has a very limited voice spectrum but I feel that this album really did justice for his voice he didn’t get too off-key and he stayed in his range not going to high.

At first the album was confusing since the song didn’t start out like most of the Fray’s songs with emotion and heart ache. This one instead started out more happy and peppy, there was an upbeat and they added more of a dance or club sound. It was unexpected and really shows off their diversity in their music. Not just sticking with a mournful tune but going outside of the box.

Their song “Give It Away” really captured that. It was something you could dance to at a party and had a groovy feel to it.

“Keep On Wanting” did a good job of capturing their original style with a little twist here and there that added to the songs feel.

“Love Don’t Die” was a song that you really had to get used to. At first it was awkward and felt distorted. After about four times of listening to it I finally liked it.

Overall they did a great job with this album.  They explored their music like pros seeming their music together perfectly so that it didn’t sound like the whole album was the same song but not to different to sound like every song was a different album.

If you like Imagine Dragons, Coldplay and Keane then you’ll enjoy this album. It released on February 25 for on iTunes for $9.99. It is 42:19 of drowning out the world around you.

by ARIELLA APPLEBY