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Jul 06, 2022 By Caleb Campbell

Next week, long-running indie art rock outfit A Fragile Tomorrow are back with their new album, It’s Better That Way. Arriving after a number of line-up shakeups for the band, including the departure of founding member Dominic Kelly, the record finds the band widening their style into an expansive collage of genres.

As frontman Sean Kelly explains, “It’s an album that is, I think, the best encapsulation of the band we’ve always been and the interests we’ve always had. There are rock songs, folk songs, loops and samples, mandolins, acoustic guitars, synths, straight-up pop songs in the vein of songwriters like Neil Finn, a song heavily influenced by hip-hop duo Madvillain, and some new wave-y angular jangle. It’s really an amalgamation of everything we love and everything we’re interested in exploring.”

Ahead of the album’s release, the band have also shared one last single from the record, “Fraying Wire,” premiering with Under the Radar.

With “Fraying Wire” the band delivers some of their most emotionally charged material yet, offering a pointed reflection on political corruption and the violence of the January 6th riots. The track revolves around an anxious and angular guitar line, bolstered by knotted basslines and glistening synth passages. Vicki Peterson of The Bangles also is in the mix, providing shimmering backing vocals to Kelly’s confessions. Lyrically, Kelly captures the frayed nerves, burning anger, and overwhelming exhaustion that define our current political moment一“I’m a fraying wire / I’m a nation on fire / It’s a little too late.”

“Fraying Wire is probably the song I’m most proud of on the record. It’s a direct response to the events of January 6th, 2021 and really just is me feeling ashamed and embarrassed of the US. I was thinking about how we really don’t have any real rebellious political figures in this country who are fighting the system and fighting for the rights of working people and disenfranchised people. What January 6th showed us is that the “rebel” side of the coin is made up of rather delusional individuals who are sadly misinformed and far removed from society. It’s a sad thing, and something I felt compelled to write about.

The video features footage from our Dreamland live session in West Hurley, NY from December of 2021, and it’s a lyric video in nature; something I was excited about doing for this song in particular. I just felt proud of the lyrics in a way that was unique to “Fraying Wire.” The lyrics of this song felt too powerful not to display boldly.”

Check out the song and video below. It’s Better That Way is out everywhere on July 15th.