After 2005’s “How to Save a Life,” The Fray has been struggling to make another hit album.  Their new album, “Scars & Stories,” is a fair attempt to reach their 2005 high again, but it’s not quite there, though it is much better than their self-titled album that came out in 2009.

The second I started listening to “Heartbeat,” the first track on the new album, I instantly fell in love with the song and the way lead singer Isaac Slade’s voice melts into your ears with his slurred singing style.

As the rest of the songs played, however, I slowly became bored with one slower-paced piano-rock song after another.

The songs and the album itself have a reasonable length.  “Scars & Stories” has the perfect amount of 12 new songs. The song amount makes listening to the entire album easy, it can be listened to its entirety on just a trip downtown, which suits people that have a hard time listening to long albums with a lot of tracks.

People that like The Fray and other similar bands will enjoy “Scars & Stories,”.

The similarity in songs is common with The Fray and usually doesn’t suit many music fans. I would advise buying one or two hand-picked songs to avoid the repetition that “Scars and Stories” brings to the table.