Something rather remarkable is taking place this week, punk boy done good Frank Turner, is battling it out with yummy mummy favourite Michael Bublé for the number one position on the charts. 6 years into his solo career and five albums later, Turner’s ascendancy is continuing at a time when most bands’ are running out of steam. From headlining Wembley Arena to opening the Olympics, things have never been better for Winchester’s son. And yet, as if by clockwork, just as things start to get stratospheric for Turner’s career, things have come crashing down in his personal life. The result of that turmoil is Turner’s 5th album ‘Tape Deck Heart’, a bittersweet breakup record. Heartbreak has left an imposing dent on music history from Ryan Adams’ ‘Heartbreaker’ to Frightened Rabbit’s ‘The Midnight Organ Fight’, boys bearing their souls, uncomfortably, makes for great music.
Tape Deck Heart’ is no exception. Opening with an anthem ‘Recovery’, Turner almost, almost, tricks you into a false sense of security. Taking cues from Weezer, ‘Recovery’ is blunt, self-critical song sugar coated in a catchy melody. This musical double take serves as a clever introduction to what is Turner most self-reflective album to date. Produced by music megastar Rich Costey (Foo Fighters, Muse) ‘Tape Deck Heart’ sounds gorgeous, The Sleeping Souls (Turner’s backing band) have really pulled together on this record and it shows. From the genre bending ‘Four Simple Words’ to the post-rock of ‘Broken Piano’ Turner and The Sleeping Souls are beginning edge away from the standard singer-songwriter affair.
At times ‘Tape Deck Heart’ is an excruciating listen, one can only guess how Turner will manage to sing such brutally honest songs on stage. The stripped back acoustics of ‘Anymore’, even with its literary references to T.S Eliot, sheds any hope of complexity and aims squarely at the gut, crippling you with its directness. Brutal, harsh and desperately sad it is the album’s most harrowing moment. Compound this with the dark references of self-loathing in ‘Tell Tale Signs’ and you’re in for a rocky ride.
Not that ‘Tape Deck Heart’ is without its lighter moments, the glorious ‘Oh Brother’, a song expressing the platonic joys of bromances, gives the listener some relief. As does ‘The Way I Tend To Be’, Turner’s most obviously ‘pop’ song to date, although again the sheer ‘stuck in your headness’ of the melody only detracts from the blunt subject matter for a few moments.
There are a few things Frank Turner has never been. He’s never been cool and he’s never been ironic. Although ‘Tape Deck Heart’ is a slickly produced album, and while it may have the ears of many thousands of people, it was written as if no one cared. Written away from the hubbub of label suits and steering far clear of lazy comfort zones, ‘Tape Deck Heart’ is Turner’s best album yet. So cheers for that Frank.
CLARA CULLEN