Frank Turner, simply put, was an angry man once. He was your typical anarcho-punk, at least in spirit. Suddenly, two solo albums down the line and he's become a folk hero of the underground, with a six-string in hand and stories galore.
I think, as a long-time Frank fan, I can safely say that I was shocked by this album. It lacks the grit, it lacks the anger, but what it has in buckets is maturity. I've yet to come across an artist who can go three albums without maturing too fast, but Frank did at the right pace.
He took the folky sounds of his previous works, and added his own angsty, romantic spin to the lyrics and created something. I wouldn't go as far as a masterpiece, because it is nothing spectacular, but I would go as far as branding it a mould breaker. Why? Simply because there are no other punk turned folk artists who can pull off all of their music with such conviction.
Okay, so it starts of weak, very weak in fact, but it works from the ground up. It's shaky on first listen, a bit like building a house on some loose soil, but once you've packed in a firmer foundation, it gets better. That's exactly what happens, he opens with a song that sounds so bland, and then packs in some firmer tunes right after it.
If we skip the reasonably strong middle of the album, with its overly sentimental tunes, we come out at a very rocky outcrop. I'm totally unsure over the ending. I'd love to like the ending, but I just can't, it goes out on a total downer.
I'll cut to the chase, and say that while it's a good album considering Frank is "not of this genre", it's not brilliant. There's a lot of love, a fair bit of song, and very little ire at all. In fact, it's more "Love, Sentimentality, and Song".
Get it if you're into mopey, angsty love songs with acoustic guitars; skip it if you're hoping for another Sleep is for the Week.
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Jun 5th, 2008
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