Glasgow has unleashed its fair share of run-of-the-mill indie rock bands on the world in recent times to varying degrees of success. Indie-cum-country explorers Fram deliver their antidote to senseless lad-rock drivel, and do so sounding positively masculine!
Their chilly sound is perhaps best captured on the appropriately-named "Endurance", surely an ode to the doomed Antarctica-bound ship of 1912. Fram, after all, was a Nordic ship. The would-be country sound is masked by an icy glazing, bringing the sound closer to Scottish shores.
Patience is a must in order to hear this album out. It's not that the album is by any means poor, but the end product has come out sounding altogether too much like Coldplay. It's also worth pointing out that this seems to be a concept album. That's fair and well, but had the crew of The Endurance taken this album with them, there's a good chance they'd all have abandoned ship by the time they reached "Dear Diary".
This album will not be without its appeal, but doesn't go further than anything before it. In short, it's unadventurous. The sea is untamed, wild - this album is quite the opposite.