Playlouder - Music is the Network

Frank Turner is back. Whether you like it or not. The Winchester songwriter with dodgy hardcore roots and political pretentions (brought on by a penchant for Billy Bragg) promises a more mature and reflective approach to his craft on this, his second solo album.

A modernist nod with a touch of irony, ‘I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous’, is an intriguing song title, and one that is let down by a tedious trawl through Frank’s mates' names and their boring hobbies presented in a sort of English Dashboard Confessional strum-along shout-along, almost rousing but always embarrassing celebration of being a bit privileged and a bit arty and a bit like everyone I went to sodding school with.

The theme continues with recent single ‘Photosynthesis’, in which Frank sings about how he refuses to grow up: “All my friends are getting married, and mortgages and pension plans… I won’t sit down / and I won’t shut up / and most of all, yeah, I won’t grow up.”

Maybe this is an uplifting rallying cry for some ‘young adults’ but frankly it riles me. Does this make you better than them, Frank? Does it really? Because to me it just makes you sound spoilt, spiteful and insubstantial, and I’ve never felt more like I wanted to stop listening to Blink 182 and get a job in a bank, lest I turn out like you.

I first saw Frank playing in a beach hut in Cornwall. His performance was brash and assured and pretty impressive. Very much a natural successor to the urbane folk of the Dylans and Braggs of yesterday, but lyrically awkward at times. “That’ll change,” I thought.

Nope.

Frank’s got a strong voice, but, like so many, he’s just shouting above the din of mediocrity for the sake of shouting. He has absolutely nothing to say. Inasmuch as you couldn’t here what they were saying, Million Dead might even have worked better (though let’s not call for a reunion tour just yet).

‘Love Ire & Song’ is a great example of this. Frank’s riling against “idiot fucking hippies” who ruined his enjoyment of whatever protest march he last got drunk on is as crass as his insistence that “Your parents let the world all go to shit”. The latter line is as inane and embarrassing as his former revelation that “Thatcher fucked the kids”.

(Really, Frank? Why don’t you write a fucking song about it. Oh, wait…)

This is protest music for people with no understanding of or interest in the world around them and the way it works: It’s as myopic and hateful as any proper ‘hippie shit’, any goth niche drivel or any nazi reggae. I can’t imagine a viable demographic outside of his guest list.

His love songs aren’t much more enlightening; “Who’d have thought that a French kiss from a Parisian girl could capture an English boy?”

Erm, everyone? It’s a shame that this song’s so lyrically trite because otherwise it’d be one of the few with a powerful enough composition to save this record some face.

As it is, it comes across as deeply immature and, sadly, shows none of the progress in song writing that’s been promised. Closing track 'Jet Lag' makes one yearn for a parachute.

Save it for open mic night at The Railway Inn, mate. Amongst the endless Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Levellers covers these songs might stand out, but in the cold light of the record shop, I ain’t buying it.