The Frames have been around for over a decade, making albums that flourish at home in Ireland but fail to reach an audience in the U.S. After starting out on Island Records in 1992, and subsequently getting bounced around to various smaller labels,
The Frames finally ended up on ANTI- for their latest release, Burn The Maps. They're finally getting managed properly, too, as they've been gaining steady exposure in the states for what will surely end up as one of the great albums of 2005.
The ironically titled \Happy"" opens the album on a somber note, setting the gorgeously vulnerable tone that prevails on Burn The Maps with the line ""Come help me out, I'm sick from the fight."" It flows seamlessly into a lush, highly addictive chorus, which finds vocalist Glen Hansard crooning like Thom Yorke. The song's stellar element of intimacy manages to persist throughout the entire album, even though many songs do not share its subdued, hushed nature.
The Frames have a true affinity with layering their songs. They build and fade magnificently, sometimes weaving in and out gradually, other times roaring or halting instantly. In songs such as ""Dream Awake,"" listeners find themselves engrossed in a soft lullaby, suddenly wrenched into a frenetic jumble of orchestration and percussion and just as quickly delivered back to quiet sanity with Hansard softly singing like nothing happened.
""Ship Caught In The Bay"" is a uniquely dreamy song which is the biggest departure from the rest of Burn The Maps. It is fitting that this song, whose instrumentation lies in a distant undercurrent of guitar and bongo, would breathe life into the meaning of the album's title.
With the words ""Leaving, but never far enough / Like a ship caught in the bay,"" it is understandable why Hansard might want to burn those maps that continually lead him back to trouble and heartbreak.
Burn The Maps is a fantastically captivating journey, and one that's bound to stick in your mind-not just through the hooks, but also through The Frames' unabashed desire to draw you into their impassioned world and not let you out. It helps that the music's just too damn good for you to resist.
