Frank Turner - Campfire Punkrock

  by Daniel Cressey

published: 15 / 4 / 2006

Label: Select Label
Format: CDS

intro

Effective folk punk on new EP from former Million dead frontman Frank Turner

Taking a well trodden route from punk anger to slightly quieter folk anger Frank Turner has risen from the remnants of his impressively loud previous band Million Dead with this set of five acoustic tales of UK living. Much like those who have clearly inspired this transformation – Billy Bragg in the past and Chris TT closer to the present – Turner manages to make wistful folk/country gems out of both traditional genre staples and more unusual topics. ‘Casanova Lament’ and ‘I Really Don’t Care What You Did In Your Gap Year’ take on the traditional topics of getting and not getting laid respectively. Meanwhile ‘Nashville Tennessee’ is a glorious lament to the fact that the singer was raised in middle England and never knew anyone who played pedal-steel guitar. ‘Thatcher Fucked the Kids’ is a probably self-explanatory title, firmly in the political protest vein that has been mined so well by Bragg and others, as well as informed by some of the anger that seemed to drive Million Dead. An effective and well executed change of direction, 'Campfire Punk Rock' is at least as authentic a chronicle of Turner’s part of 21st century Britain as the Streets’ or Dizzy Rascal’s is of theirs. In the words of the man himself: "Yes I’m in 4/4 time; and yes I use cheap, cheap rhyme; but I try to make this sound my own."

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