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Burn The Maps

by

The Frames

 
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Burn The Maps

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Avg: 4.0 (14 ratings)

Blessedly life-sized (but still expansive) Irish rock.

  • We Say...

    Review by Thomas Bartlett

    An Irish rock-band with a knack for sweeping crescendos and soaring melodies as well as an earnest sense of self-importance, it's inevitable that the Frames be often compared to their compatriots in U2. The comparison is apt, but frontman Glen Hansard doesn't have a Bono-style superhuman rock voice; he has the voice of a normal person and he knows it. The tension between the intimate scale of his voice and the epic tendencies of the band make Burn the Maps an intriguing record, with moments of high drama — the hook of "Finally," for example, is as big as all the world, and Hansard's palpable straining to make it so increases its punch. But not all is stadium-sized bombast and melody-on-sleeve romanticism with the Frames: just as often, they sound like the broken-voiced, angst-ridden progeny of Radiohead, still just as full of drama and fireworks, but all turned inward, an internal combustion of despair. It works best when the band's two impulses are mingled in one song, as on album opener "Happy": a tense, paranoid bar-of-six verse, a thicket of misplaced accents and nervous energy broken open by an expansive, glorious chorus.

  • They Say...

    Review by Johnny Loftus, All Music Guide

    The Frames have been fighting it out for 15 years, issuing albums that explode in the Czech Republic and nowhere else, go platinum in Galway but can't get noticed in the U.S.A. They should finally get their due with Burn the Maps. It's the determined Irish combo's first studio effort for Anti-, the Epitaph signature label that showcases such disparate and discerning acts as Joe Henry, the Locust, and Jolie Holland, and Glen Hansard and the lads fit in there just fine -- Anti-'s an oddly shaped place, but it offers artists room to move. The same applies to the Frames' music, which on Maps swings from the barbed, railing guitar rage of the Pixies nod "Underglass" to songs where a whispering, almost self-conscious Hansard stands next to roaring chorus set pieces that bring the band's full complement of guitars and sweeping fiddle to the table. In "Fake" he delivers the bitter central question -- "Come on the guy's a fake/What do you love him for?" -- as both a scream and a plea, while "Happy" makes incredible use of studio mixing to put the vocals in one ear, lingering harmonies in the other, and layers of acoustic guitar, swelling strings, and even a little electric squelch under the whole bit. That's the opener, and it brings listeners into the Frames' world of raw elegance. "Ship Caught in the Bay" starts with gentle percussion and a faraway melodic lilt, but drops in stuttering treated percussion near the three-minute mark for an atmospheric effect not unlike what the Doves do so well. It's also a bridge to Burn the Maps' final portion, three lengthy tracks that essay the Dirty Three's epic sway, build from aching acoustic guitar into a sort of comforting love song ("Wake up/It's your love calling," goes "Suffer in Silence"), and drift away on swirling fiddle and tinkling piano. Sometimes it seems like the Frames are holding back on Maps. The single "Finally" is one of the record's most deliberate moments, but it could have let Colm Mac Con Lomaire's fiddle hit a little harder. And though "Dream Awake"'s slow build is standard operating procedure for the band, it doesn't really climax as much as it plateaus. These minor missteps, however, don't lessen the album's gravity. Burn the Maps is an elemental journey that tugs at the heart and sticks around in the mind -- just as the Frames have been doing for years.

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