The Fray -- Isaac Slade, Ben Wysocki, David Welsh and Joe King -- is set to release its new, angrier self-titled second album today.

If The Fray's 2005 debut album, How To Save A Life, was a handshake, then the band's self-titled second disc is a conversation over a cup of coffee.

That's how lead singer-pianist Isaac Slade describes the new collection by the Denver-based piano-pop quartet, which hits stores today.

"The first record was funny because it had a lot of emotions but it didn't really have a lot of angry in it," said Slade, seated beside guitarist-vocalist Joe King during a mini-tour stop prior to a full summer tour of theatres and amphitheatres.

"And we certainly feel anger as humans, but we didn't really know how to express it. But this (CD) felt like it was okay to start expressing some more of those emotions. And that first record was a handshake, too. It wasn't the sit-down with the listener for a cup of coffee that I think the second one is."

Some of the new songs definitely have a more personal, edgy element -- from the song Enough For Now, about Slade's remote maternal grandfather, to We Build Then We Break, which appears to be a threatening open letter to the person who got away with the childhood sexual abuse of a female friend.

Slade says the band tried to write on the road, "but the songs weren't very good. They came out kind of forced and hollow and vacant, which is exactly how I would describe how I felt at that time. So I suppose it was appropriate. But once we got home and relaxed a little bit, then we got to start getting a little perspective of what it means to sleep in the same bed for more than two nights, (to) plug back into reality. That's where a lot of the songs started coming from."

The burnt-out feeling came from a number of things.

King was already married, but the other three members of The Fray -- Slade, drummer Ben Wysocki and guitarist Dave Welsh -- had all got hitched since the first album was recorded.

"I was married but I didn't feel married," Slade said. "I had friends but I didn't feel like I had friends. I was doing my dream job but it didn't feel like my dream job, so I think that is the definition of burn-out. Most of it's great. I'd say 90% of it's exactly what we wanted -- and more times a thousand -- but (then there's that) little 10%.

"Something funny happens when you have to live like a gypsy and be surrounded by the same guys for nine months out of 12. If you're in any kind of successful career, at some point you start struggling between controlling it and it controlling you. I don't think it's something that anybody else cares about, or wants to hear the rock star complain about their success. Personally, it's kind of the universal struggle of getting where you wanted to be and realizing that it's not everything it's cracked up to be. It actually takes a lot of work. We get to do what we love, but it's definitely a job."

Now the group is preparing to release its second disc and, yes, the band members admit it -- there's the dreaded sophomore slump looming.

"We could feel the pressure from when we finished the How To Save A Life cycle," King said. "We knew, 'Okay, we've got to do this again, and we don't know how to do this again.' But I think we just sat down and wanted to be proud of whatever it was we were going to discover, and fall into songs and the record."