The Fray shares their “Scars and Stories” with third album

Three weeks ago, The Fray released its third studio album, "Scars and Stories," which de­buted at #4 on the Billboard Top 200 chart.

After the overwhelming suc­cess of their self-titled sopho­more album ("The Fray, 2009) the band spent the past three years writing material and travel­ling around gaining inspiration.

Unlike the background story for "How to Save a Life" and "The Fray," "Scars and Stories," is the result of long journey for the band, as they took time to find themselves as individuals, bringing all their stories together for a total 44 minutes worth of 12 tracks. According to an interview with Vevo, the band used part of the budget for their album to travel around the world, stopping in places such as Rwanda and Switzerland.

But delving into the album as a listener, the general public may not get hear their worldly views in the lyrics, unless they've done a bit of background research.

"Scars and Stories" gives off a feeling of loving life and loving the people around us, whether it's siblings or a significant other. The album feels like a celebra­tion from their success with songs like "Heartbeat" and "Turn Me On" with its upbeat tempos and hopeful lyrics, something that is very different from their second album which discussed a lot of finding one's self.

However the songs have a deep­er meaning. In interviews, the band has explained how many of the songs have to do with their travels; they wrote around 70 about being abroad and narrowed it down finally to 12. Songs like "Heartbeat," were inspired by a conversation with a Rwandan woman and "Munich" about the search for the "God Particle" in Switzerland.

The band credits a lot of the work on the third album to its new producer they worked with and fans may notice a change in the amount of upbeat songs, less ballads, but the lyrics are still all them. Die-hard fans will enjoy the whole album and fans of their heavily radio-played songs should stick with the single, "Heartbeat." However tracks like the "Wind," "Munich" and "The Fighter" give us a taste of com­mon Fray lyrics that question life and our existence.

"Scars and Stories" is the per­fect kind of pick me up album; it delivers plenty of variety with its eclectic sound, however the lyrics definitely follow a theme pertaining to a phase of life, which should be very familiar to Fray fans.

While I love tracks such as "Heartbeat" and "I Can Barely Say" (which portrays their "usu­al" sound with lots of piano and a softer side), the entire album promises at least one addictive track for everyone.