Frank Turner, Poetry of the Deed
Folk-pop delivered with a punk rock attitude — Turner is a bard of the people
"There's no such thing as rock stars / there's just people who play music", sings Bahrain-born, London-based singer songwriter Frank Turner on "Try This At Home." Vintage punk's DIY ethos continues to inform Turner's folk-pop, and his third album's taut, ebullient songs sound as though they were recorded while Turner was still buzzing from their creation.
In many ways, Frank is still the politicised, wordy-but-accessible troubadour who made 2007's Sleep Is For The Week and 2008's Love Ire & Song, but Poetry of the Deed sees him embrace a fuller, more layered sound, courtesy of his five-piece touring band. Factor in the recruitment of producer Alex Newport (Death Cab For Cutie / At The Drive-In), and Turner's recent signing to Epitaph and you've a clear bid for the big time, though tunes such as "Dan's Song" — ostensibly about drinking beer in the park — suggest Turner, 27, still has his feet firmly on the ground.
The album's smart, hook-crammed title track underlines much of Frank's appeal, his busy couplets tumbling with urgency as he breathlessly reports that "life is too short / to live without poetry." There, he verges on power-pop, but "The Road," built on a riff that conjures Johnny Cash's "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky", is much more traditional-sounding. Fully committed, but never off-puttingly earnest, Poetry of the Deed will fill your senses.
