Held up as the epitome of complexity, Rocket Science and Neurosurgery are fields held aloft of all others, and yet, there are thousands upon thousands of each. Why is it so difficult, then, to find an artist who can connect with people on a level of humour, intelligence, wit, passion, beauty and fortitude?
People like Frank Turner come around but a few times in a generation, a singer/songwriter not content to strum four chords whilst wailing about whichever paramour dumped them last. No, instead he seeks to find the ironic, the hope and the hypocrisy in life and artfully return it back to us in the form of rollicking semi-acoustic sing-a-longs.
Honing his skills as lyricist for hardcore band Million Dead, Turner showed a profound eye for detail and a gift for making socio-political issues palatable to the everyday person. Who else could pen lines like "Willy Wonka was a capitalist confidence trickster, a poster boy for neo-liberalism, a full-stop on revolt. and the BFG a propagandist for an unaccountable regime, Orwell's vision with a wrinkled face." and make them the catchiest things on an album? With his second solo effect, Turner increases the ratio of the internal to the external, painting an inherently more personal landscape. With song themes ranging from his disillusionment with punk-rock, to the heartache of losing a close friend, to his acceptance of being on the wrong side of a generation gap, to inciting the masses to go out and enjoy life while they still can, right on through to the vapidity of celebrity, there's going to be something people can personally relate to. Yet, even the themes which were previously foreign matter to the listener are rendered profusely immediate to them via the skill of Turner's song-writing prowess.
The sheer amount of heart infused into this effort is astounding, Turner is even unafraid to give voice to his failings. While on one song he mocks those without the capacity to follow through on their ideals, on "Substitute" he comes across as a man anxious about whether he'd equally give up on his dreams just because of the allure of romance. "If music be the food of love / I'd be a fat romantic slob... I've had many different girls inside my bed / but only one or two inside my head / These days I cuddle up guitar instead / what I'd give not to stumble but to really fall in love / and I could substitute my singing for the sound of someone sleeping next to me."
The show-stopping accolade for emotive substance has to go to "Long Live the Queen" though. Commencing with a jaunty tap-fest, it quickly dissolves into a battle between mourning and joyful appearance. "You'll live to dance another day / just now you'll have to dance for the two of us / Stop looking so damn depressed / sing with all your heart 'The Queen is Dead'."
Even with this gold-star lyrical resume, a lesser musician could still mess it up. Surely a man with such a penchant for verse could not muster equally affecting musical containment for his thoughts? Switch your jealousy mode to 'on', for once again Frank Turner strikes gold. He knows exactly how to keep everything varied, bringing in the instrumental cavalry only when it's absolutely necessary. The electric guitar is broken out on "Imperfect Tense", the piano on closer "Jet Lag" and vocal accompaniment on "To Take You Home". Functioning as the figurative 'icing on the cake' this layering ensures that once you've digested every word of this astonishing poet, you'll still have multitudes of musical depth to breach.
Turner's folk-tinted vocals always sounded unique, but on this punk-wrapped, semi-acoustic foray into folk, his voice has truly found it's home. When he breaks out the mega-pipes, like on the finale of "I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous" and the third act of "A Love Worth Keeping" it's enough to send waves of shivers flowing down your spine, then extending on to every cell in your body.
What more could you ask for, but to be touched in the heart and in the mind at the same time. Only a particularly careless neurosurgeon and a musical prodigy could claim to do so.
9 / 10
On paper, it's hard... Read on
Genre hybrids are nothing... Read on
Freshly processed from the strangeglue.com playlist at Last.fm
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matt
commented 6 months ago
I couldnt agree more and if i wasnt rushing out the door i'd write somthing more profound. what can we say but that it is already challenging Sleep is for the Week for his best album and i've only had it two weeks!! it feels like he's relaxed more and his voice works perfectly on every song, I saw him in brighton on monday and compared to seeing him at leeds last year he seems to have come into his own so much and as always has a smile on his face.