Frank Turner – Love Ire & Song

• 29th Mar 2008

Not too long ago Frank Turner was penning great swooning romantic hits like ‘Thatcher Fucked the Children’. These days he’s writing real love songs with the incisive wit of a true British songwriter, although he does admit to cuddling his guitar a bit in lieu of a real girlfriend.

‘Love, Ire and Song’ is an incredible collection of some truly biting observations about love, life and revolutions which, for some reason, begin in Southampton bistros and involve banjos.

With a clever blend of nostalgia, cynicism and plain common sense, this is the perfect album if you’re planning to spend this Spring and Summer in your bedsit with the grimy curtains drawn, red wine in your glass and The Smiths filtering from the battered hi-fi in the corner. In short ‘Love, Ire and Song’ is a lit firecracker under your arse.

Most obvious here is the brilliantly penned and rousingly performed ‘Reasons Not to be an Idiot.’ In it Turner reminds us that we’re all the same and that we should, in his words. ‘Get up, get down and get outside.’ And all of this to a tight pleasing arrangement that has radio airplay stamped all over it.

Guitar-wise the album veers from the fully plugged in Indie sound to some intricate acoustic riffs that Jim Croce probably wouldn’t have sniffed at.

‘Love, Ire and Song’ was apparently recorded on a farm somewhere down south. The spirit of the music reflects that. You can almost taste the scrumpy scoring your gullet, as you and your mates soak up the last of the hazy Summer sunshine, with the faint smell of cowpats and those tiny but annoying swarms of midges with people issues.

It’s in this spirit that the album works best. ‘Substitute’ (the guitar cuddling track) is the best example. It’s something most guys will identify with; ‘If music was the food of love, I’d be a fat romantic slob.’

Lines like this lift Turner’s words off whatever cigarette packet he wrote them on and make them something special. The album’s filled with great turns of phrase like the whimsical: ‘I‘ve had many different girls inside my bed, but only one or two inside my head.’ It may sound a little naff written here, but accompanied with a George Harrison sounding chord change it works.

Turner will inevitably be compared to ‘Get Cape Wear Cape Fly’. But if GCWCF are about impulsive, youthful innocence, peppered with common sense and nostalgia, Turner’s their slightly older, world-wearier brother.

A must have.