somewhere along in the bitterness
posted at 8:18 pm by brandon in mine's on the 45
The date to circle in giant red ink on your calendar: February 3, 2009, which is when the massively gifted Isaac Slade and his terrific band The Fray follow up their multiplatinum breakthrough How to Save a Life (which, two years ago, produced an astonishing trifecta of monster radio smashes, most notably its strikingly somber title track, a tune that surveys a man’s failure to prevent a friend’s suicide) with a hotly-anticipated self-titled sophomore album.
The new record is teased by a gripping, richly cinematic lead single
“You Found Me” 
(which you’ve no doubt heard promoting the forthcoming fifth season of “Lost,” due to premiere next month), on which Slade slips completely inside the story of a young man who stumbles upon God on an everyday street corner — smoking His last cigarette, natch — and violently abrades Him for taking away the love of his life. (If the tune’s thrust seems hopelessly dopey in synopsis, you just gotta trust me when I tell you: it’s a wrenching yet soaring masterpiece in practice.) Slade is a marvel to behold as he stretches his miraculous voice across “Found’s” devastatingly taut lyric and — insofar as he never quite travels where you expect him to inside the song’s core — allows the piano-centric melody to constantly surprise you by veering off in surprising detours and falling into unpredictable rhythms. A tough listen, to be sure, but an unspeakably rewarding one, “You Found Me” is a harrowing highwire act, and a thoroughly riveting aural triumph.
