Review: Frank Turner: Positive Songs For Negative People

Frank Turner is a British rock/folk singer and musician from Hampshire. He started off his musical career in punk band 'Million Dead', but went solo in 2005 as the band split up. Turner has quietly become one of the most popular solo artists in the UK by playing a huge amount of shows.

Turner is now on his 6th studio album after a solo career spanning 10 years (8 years since first studio album). He has been widely praised for his ability to fuse the folk sound of a singer-songwriter with a heavier tone. This means that he's gained a wide range of fans from different music scenes.

This album starts with a track called 'The Angel Islington', this track is slow and minimalist, featuring just Frank's vocals and a guitar. This is a really sweet opening track that sets up the powerful 'Get Better' really well. This second track is an emotionally charged love song that finds the really delicate balance between heartwarming vocals and heavy guitars and drums, This track ends abruptly going into the twinkling opening riff of 'The Next Storm', then building into the full body of the song. This is what Turner does well, roaring vocals over perfectly put together instruments.

'The Opening of Spring' comes next. This track uses the banjo instead of his usual guitar sound, which I don't think works as well with his voice and just feels a bit weak. Both 'Glorious You' and 'Mittens' are strong tracks. The first is an invigoratingly powerful track whereas the latter is more of a ballad with softer guitars and vocals. The flow between these two tracks works well though even with the change in sound. 'Out Of Breath' is a much quicker and punkier track, this offers more variation to the album. I feel that the vocals don't fit too well together with the up tempo instruments though.

The latter part of this album has less to shout about than the start of the LP. There are glimpses of what Turner can do with songs such as 'Josephine'. This track has a good sing-along chorus that I could imagine becoming a future fan favorite. Many of the songs in this part of the album are fairy generic however, such as 'Love Forty Down' and 'Silent Key'. These tracks seem to have less passion than some others on the album. Much of this album involves Turner's trademark sound that he's honed to create a niche style that works very well for him. This album has a good flow to it as it changes tempo and instruments used, Turner's lyrics are also very well written and tell convincing stories.

Highs:
The Next Storm
Mittens

Lows:
The Opening Day Of Spring
Demons

Rating: 7.3/10