Frank Turner - No Man’s Land (August 16, 2019) Album • Page 16

I like the song and I just checked and it was definitely "sensational" on the stream yesterday.

 

This is where I’m at, too. Which sucks so much because he’s probably my most listened to artist besides Gaslight since like 2010. The last two albums have been huge misses ... and that’s a very big understatement.

 

Well this is a nice song featuring Frank. Saw this on his Twitter. Called Start Again by a band called Lottery Winners

 

Frank Turner Setlist at The Forum, Royal Tunbridge Wells

This was fun! Emily Barker absolutely rules

 

Agreed. Every now and again I'll go back to Love Ire and Song to get the warm fuzzy nostalgia hit but I've given up expecting anything new worth listening to.

Still solid to see live though.

 

I'd love to see a new GOOD album from Frank this year

 

Would love that, but I have lost all faith in Frank to produce a good album again. The last 2 make me so angry

 

sadly agree

 

Be More Kind was ok. I’ll maintain that I still like half the album.

No Man’s Land has a few good songs, and is an interesting concept, but lacked in so many other areas. Maybe a 4-5 song EP would have been more on point.

If trying to hard is a thing, it felt like those records tried too hard if you know what I mean. Frank is is still awesome and it’s be nice to just see what comes naturally and without objection. I will be eagerly anticipating new music. Not sure what to expect.

 

Anything that sounds like Positive Songs or earlier works for me.

 

i really disliked most of Positive Songs but I would take an album that sounded like that again in a heartbeat after what he's dribbled out over the last 2 years.

 

I'm hopeful he can come back around and make some good shit again

 

I still have faith although I'm not expecting anything as good as LI&S.

 

He said he's writing an "aggressive punk record" which I think has potential to be great if he does it right. I think anything he does will be better than the last 2 albums though

 

when I hear him talk like that, I just think Mongol Horde

 

Punk can be an attitude. I think that’s where my mind went when he said punk. I don’t expect an album of 1933’s, but I do want to hear a slightly unapologetic punk attitude album from him. Draw from his acoustic and full band history. Peggy Sang The Blues has a “punk feel” to me. It’s in the delivery which usually comes naturally to him.

His Eat The Meek cover was fantastic.

 

Eye of the Day is a great Frank song. Sister Rosetta feels like a 12 year old writing a song to play at a school talent show. Maybe not doing the album with the Souls hurt it in hindsight (not in musicianship, but simply as a band who’ve worked together). No Man’s Land missed the mark for me, although I think the idea was cool because it was coming from a good place.

 

Peggy Sang the Blues is such a great song.

 

I’m hoping he touches on variety of punk elements from his “own stylings”. I also love the mix of experimental like a Broken Piano or Redemption for example. Plus some of the folly songs are so impactful in contrast like a Sailors Boots.

 

The Graveyard of the Outcast Dead, Eye of the Day, Jinny Bingham's Ghost are all solid Frank songs. Possibly even I Believed You, William Blake. A lot of No Man's Land really makes me cringe though, and I don't think most of the songs are very good at all, but it seems like it was coming from a good place I suppose.

Be More Kind seems like it came from a really positive place as well, and it really makes me wish I just liked a bunch of songs on it a lot more than I do. A handful of them are pretty good. I think Make America Great Again being a massive whiff really hurts the album for me - it's kinda positioned to be a centerpiece of the album and I can't even listen to it. The Lifeboat is fucking awesome though. Something about it just strikes me as Frank Turner doing a Josh Ritter song and it's amazing. In the time since the album came out this one song has grown on me more and more, while the rest of the album has kinda faded back to being just alright-ish maybe for me. I get the feeling that I was really forcing it trying to get into the album because it was Frank, whereas if someone just played the album for me in a vacuum I probably wouldn't have even given it a second thought.

 

I really like songs like 21st Century Survival Blues, Don’t Worry and Little Changes are sweet, 1933 is good but it’s weird to only have one song like it on the album, Blackout is scent in terms of experimentation. I get the distaste for Make America....but I think again, intent is there to make the term actually mean what it suggests. As a non America (and this also comes from a non American), maybe the situation was too fresh for people to embrace. If that song came out a year from now ha when it did maybe people would have reacted slightly different.

Totally agree with the No Man’s Land take above though. Some good songs amongst some really not interesting songs. That doesn’t demean the person who inspired them, he just didn’t capture the story telling magic on all of them.

 

My main problem with Make America Great Again was the compete and utter lack of teeth. I'm not sure it is the right topic to tackle working from a thesis of just needing to be more kind to people. To put it delicately, I think neo-Nazis and racists deserve a stronger attack than just lobbing a softball about being more nice at them, whether the sentiment is true or not.

Also, as a song it is just kind of silly and cheesy. Sometimes silly and cheesy works for me, like I absolutely love Mittens. MAGA just doesn't work for me on any level whatsoever.

 

I think having songs like Thatcher Fucked The Kids and then going soft of Trump and that dangerous group of supporters kind of confirms your point. I know those songs are years apart and 1933 was more aggressive, but yeah I can totally get the negative feedback. I don’t dislike the song but I do find it’s optimism a little deaf. I think that’s in part not meeting and spending time with a certain portion of the population of American’s when you are a touring artist or tourist. The world does does need some positivity though. Good points BB.

 

I know for me personally, being American played into it because I had/have such strong feelings of sheer and utter embarrassment and shame regarding what he's singing about being my country. So he stirs up all of this emotion and anger and brings up a ridiculously serious topic and then just kinda serves up a greeting card platitude about it.

All of this sounds overly critical even to me, because at the end of the day , being more kind is a great message and one the world absolutely does need. It makes me feel about the song that it's neat and cool but definitely not for me and not something I would or will ever listen to again.