The Fray's taking some chances on its new album? Appears so.

Okay Fraysayers, sounds like the moment that you've been clamoring for all these years may finally be upon us. Just watched an interview that Sir Isaac Slade gave last week at Sundance in which he utttered the magic words so many detractors who have dismissed the band as being boring and safe have been dying to hear: The Fray has evidently reached a point in its career where the guys are ready to start taking some chances.

Oooh! Is this part where the Fray suddenly takes a sharp turn and creates its Kid A? Not bloody likely, but the gents, who are holed up in their Northglenn studio writing songs for their next record, are reportedly taking an "exploratory" approach to their songwriting for the new album. With two successful releases under their belt, the boys, it seems, have been granted some room to experiment. Though if you listened closely to the last record, particularly to songs like "We Build Then We Break," you could hear the act edging in that direction.

"We're in a weird spot in our career where the label has kind of given us carte blanche, we've gotten two big records, whatever that means -- they think it's big, so that's good -- and we kind of can do whatever we want. So we want to be exploratory, and we want to try new things -- and we are. We did something the other day that all four of us looked at each other; none of us really knew what it was or how to make of it. Sounds like that band Television, kind of. It's just way out there for us. For a pop rock band, we're sort of crawling out of our own skin like, 'Where's the hit chorus?' But then it's so satisfying at the same time to be able to really chill out a little bit and not worry about getting something that everybody in this room is going to connect to, you know? [If I can] just get a couple of them, I'll be stoked."

Television, huh? That certainly might attract some new viewers. Of course it could also cause the show to get the hook from the network. Guess we'll see, eh?