The Bellwether

When The Fray first burst onto the scene in the early aughts, the Colorado-bred band introduced the world to a profoundly life-affirming form of alt-rock: timeless but inventive, arena-sized in scope but firmly rooted in raw emotion. Over the coming decades, their soul-searching songwriting and high-powered sound led to earning four Grammy Award nominations, scoring a multitude of Billboard top 10 hits, and amassing a passionately devoted worldwide fanbase. On their first new body of work in ten years, vocalist/guitarist and primary songwriter Joe King, guitarist Dave Welsh, and drummer Ben Wysocki continue the band’s formidable legacy following the 2022 departure of former frontman Isaac Slade—all while uncovering entirely new dimensions of their artistry. Named for a joyful declaration shouted out by a fan at a recent live show, The Fray Is Back finds King stepping into the role of lead singer and joining Welsh and Wysocki in launching a bold new chapter for the globally beloved band.

Arriving ahead of the 20^th anniversary of their four-times-platinum debut album How to Save a Life—a 2005 LP whose title track spent 58 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100—The Fray Is Back emerged from a highly collaborative process propelled by unbridled exploration, beginning with all three members working remotely in their respective cities. “We didn’t start out with any definitive expectations for this new material,” says King. “We were just sharing ideas with each other and going on our own journey with the songs, and it became a unifying force that gave us new purpose and direction.” In a particularly monumental shift, the EP marks the first time that King (the band’s longtime lead songwriter) has personally delivered his deeply introspective lyrics. Co-produced by The Fray with Andrew DeRoberts (Fitz and the Tantrums, Zac Brown Band), Ryan Linvill (Conan Gray, Chappell Roan), and Joe London (Thomas Rhett, Bailey Zimmerman), the six-song effort ultimately echoes the newly revitalized creative energy the band brought to each track. “Before our hiatus there was a sense that we didn’t need to fix what wasn’t broken, so we weren’t necessarily adding new fuel to the fire,” says Wysocki. “This time we were working in a completely new way where we allowed ourselves a lot more freedom, and it felt so fun and empowering—almost like a collaborative art project, which is really what this band has always been.”

In an auspicious start to The Fray’s new era, The Fray Is Back opens on the driving grooves, shimmering textures, and gilded guitar tones of “Angeleno Moon”: a soulful and soaring anthem that strikes a potent balance of dreamy nostalgia and forward-looking urgency. “I used to live in L.A. and went back to visit and ended up spending a morning walking around my old neighborhood,” says King, who now lives in Nashville. “All these memories came flooding back to me, and at some point I looked down and saw the words ‘new beginnings’ painted on the sidewalk—it felt like some sort of sign, and the song started to come together from there.”

All throughout the EP, King reveals his gift for transforming the subtlest moments into songs with tremendous emotional impact. Sparked from a chance encounter in a coffee shop, “Same Thing” offers a bracingly honest look at struggling to break free from self-limiting patterns. Next, on “Not Now,” The Fray bring fluttering piano melodies to a heavy-hearted meditation on fractured relationships and the passage of time. “Years ago in New York City I drank a bottle of wine with some people who were very close to me, and afterward we decided to write down our hopes and put them in the bottle to read ten years later,” says King. “Now life has changed for all of us, and I still have that bottle in my garage and don’t know what to do with it. ‘Not Now’ came from that experience and from asking, ‘What do you with the dreams you once shared with someone else?’” From there, the EP takes on a euphoric mood as “Don’t Look Down” channels the pure joy of true connection, then slips into wistful reminiscence on the folk-tinged storytelling of “Time Well Wasted.” Finally, on “Known You Always,” The Fray Is Back closes out with a piano-driven reflection on loss, acceptance, and the way certain people leave an indelible imprint on our lives.

Known for their exhilarating live performance, The Fray look forward to watching their new songs come to life onstage in a national headline tour kicking off this fall. “A lot of the time when we talk to fans, we hear such intense stories about how our music has affected them,” says Welsh. “Every time we play a show, we try to present as though it’s just for those people, and really honor that bond that they feel with us.” And with more new music on the way soon, the band partly views their latest output as the product of an unshakable dedication to their audience. “There’s no way for us to make the first album again, because we’re not the same people anymore—so much time has passed, and so much life has been lived,” says Wysocki. “But what we can do is stay open and keep paying attention to the world around us, and hopefully create something meaningful for all the people who care about this band as much as we do.”

Rett Madison’s new album, One for Jackie, pays tribute to her mom, who passed by suicide in 2019, leaving her only child with an unbearable sense of responsibility to understand her mother better as she mourned her. “My mom struggled with depression, PTSD, and alcoholism all my life, but her death was shocking and unexpected,” Madison says. “Writing this album, I was moving through grief; it was part of my healing process.”

Over 12 songs, Madison distills the weeks and months following her mother’s death, drawing inspiration from the storytelling she admires in Appalachian folks traditions of her home state, West Virginia, the ‘70s output of Bob Dylan and Dusty Springfield, as well as the music her mother raised her on. Beyond borrowing from the past, One for Jackie cements itself as a modern American classic.

One for Jackie gives the listener an uncanny sense of familiarity, as if immersing ourselves in Madison’s grief, in her memories, allows us to know a little bit of Jackie, too. This is a testament to Madison’s lyricism; she is specific, exacting, and wise even in her most unguarded moments. In death, we tend to flatten people, turn them saintly and pure and faultless, but One for Jackie does something better: it brings her to life.