Frank Turner - No Man’s Land (August 16, 2019) Album • Page 8

mfw I read the lyrics to Rescue Annie

 

Oh no

 

I didn't even listen on my ride into work because I didn't want to start the day off in a bad mood.

 

He’s had a few “trying days” and obviously unsure if related to any of the reviews/reactions or something else, but yeah. He’s not going to do well with the reactions people are giving these songs.

 

buckle up motherfucker

 

Hooooolyyyy shit. I didn't make it to that song. But wow, that's so bad in so many ways.

Weirdly, this album being such a trainwreck is kind of causing me to re-evaluate how I felt about that record.

 

I honestly did not think this was significantly worse than Be More Kind at all. If anything, it was an odd lateral move. I had the impression some of these songs might grow on me moreso than almost anything from BMK ever did.

I am terrible at hearing what singers are actually saying though and I missed about 90% of what "Rescue Annie" is about. I knew it was about a young girl drowning in a river, but I didn't catch anything else.

This made me laugh really hard.

 

i can't think of a way to say this without sounding shitty, so i apologize, but for lack of better phrasing, i cannot fathom how people could actually enjoy this.

if you do, good, because i love frank regardless and i want him to be successful.

but this is just....

 

Knowing Frank Turner and how he responds to criticism, this is going to be interesting......

 

It’s weird because, after hearing THIS album, if he was like “now im gonna write an album about how much I love england” I would think oh my god please don’t, but EKMB seemed to work so well (and is still my favorite record of his even if I agree it’s sonically not his best), I just don’t know where he went so south in his songwriting.

 

hopefully he doesn't have a chorus.fm account

 

Agreed. It’s the rare album that is so bad and so fundamentally flawed that I can’t think of anything nice to say about it.

 

I think a lot of people decided to not like this record before it came out.

 

Oh I think we would have heard by now if he did

 

I am not gonna argue with the fact that this album was a bad idea. It was woefully misguided right from the start. I know he can be cocky and arrogant, but I am surprised nobody close to him in his real life talked him out of this.

The only way I can see this concept even coming close to working would have been something more along the lines of the latest National record, where the vocals were shared with female voices that featured at least as much as Frank's, if not more. Even more crucially, he should have collaborated with women on the writing of the songs and at the most have done co-writes with them.

All of that aside though, I do think there are a few really good songs here. I honestly don't think there is anything on Be More Kind that is as good as "The Graveyard of the Outcast Dead". He probably should have taken the few good songs from this and just put them on an album, or maybe done a very short EP dedicated to his mum or something.

I do wonder if the irony of a white guy writing a thoroughly pedestrian song about how much of a genius Sister Rosetta was and it easily getting a wide release is lost on Frank though.

 

I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I didn’t hear any songs from this until yesterday and was excited to download it and listen. It’s just weak songwriting on top of a questionable concept. AND he sounds bored again. The really weird thing for me is how much fire he had in his vocals on Positive Songs and how that’s been completely gone from the last two records.

 

Well, being that he released half of the album before today i think it's perfectly fine to use the material we've had to form our opinions on it.

If you mean that people's minds were made up before he even released a single song, I don't think thats on the mark at all. I remember a lot of posts in past FT threads discussing this potential project with excitement and anticipation, and once it came to be, it was just a massive letdown. I don't think BMK was bad enough to have me fear any future FT releases and go into a new album cycle pessimistic, but, after this album that may not be the case anymore.

 

Yes, I mean before songs were released. I’m not talking about most the fans in here that are disappointed and underwhelmed. I think most people here have it a shot.

 

After BMK I was super ready to move on from that album. I went into this with some excitement, but I will admit I didn't have high hopes after how much I hated BMK … but I still approached this with cautious optimism.

Once I heard Sister Rosetta my expectations dropped severely. Then the next song dropped and I was even more bored. And it then kept getting worse and worse. Then Jason gave us his opinions and he said this album was everything I feared it would be. So from there I had absolutely no hope and didn't even listen to this yesterday for the leak or today on release day.

I know I liked the Graveyard of the Outcast Dead but haven't listened or revisited to any of the released tracks. I'll give this thing a listen some point today, but man, delaying a new Frank Turner album's first listen to "sometime" is not what something I would ever think would happen a short 4 years ago.

 

It’s a meh album

I liked the new version of Silent Key
Jenny Bingham is a solid song and would probably be fun live

But yeah overall it’s a big disappointment. Rescue Annie is his worst song ever and super super gross

 

Well, at least the Hold Steady have a new album out today.

 

Liked it more than I expected to, and definitely more than BMK, but that isn't saying much.

My favourites were Dora Hand, Graveyard (which actually is a fair contender against Blackout as his best song in ages), The Lioness (this song is wicked) and A Perfect Wife. Rescue Annie is one of the more instrumentally interesting songs here, too bad about it lyrically.

 

Like this wayyyy more than BMK for sure.

 

Tried again. I find this virtually unlistenable.

 

Currently on track 5 "A Perfect Wife"

I've enjoyed the 3-5 quite a bit, although a clear step down from Frank at his best. I'd still like seeing these songs played live by him