It would be wrong to suggest everything on this album is Turner at his best though. Tell-Tale Signs hooks you from its opening yelp of goddammit Amy! while at points on Anymore he sounds like he might just break down crying and make you do so with him. It was a wonderful life when we were together and now Ive fucked up every little goddamn thing. This does not sound like the man who told us that we werent as messed up as we thought we were, and that our self-absorption made us messier, but who cares about the contradictions when the results are so fantastic? Franks even been able to put together a couple of nifty little slow ballads, never really his strong suit in the past. This is most evident in the rousing Fisher King Blues, in which he explicitly states that we were born without meaning, we will die without reason, and the world will not shrug all that much at our passing. The superb Plain Sailing Weather also follows on that theme of despair over crunching guitars he howls give me one fine day of plain sailing weather, and I could fuck up anything, anything. His previous attempts at love songs have largely been filled with anger and frustration, either at himself or his significant others, but here he sounds almost resigned to the fact that hes going to die alone. Indeed, whats striking about Tape Deck Heart is just how vulnerable Turner sounds. After an entertaining but forgettable opening two songs, Tape Deck Heart really kicks into gear with the fantastic The Way I Tend to Be. Leaning towards the folk end of Turners musical spectrum, its a subdued but affecting piece with a catchy chorus, and is the first sign that maybe this album will pack a lot more emotion than the usual fist-pumping Frank fun. The rest of the album sees Turner draw out the breakdown of a relationship in raw, painful detail, and it is much more compelling that hearing him complain about all the people who just dont understand him and his punk rock. Still, its a very good thing that Four Simple Words is the exception rather than the rule. "HI-HO HI-HO HI-HO," he bellows as if he was Shouty, the little known eighth dwarf, "WE'RE HEADING OUT TO THE PUNK ROCK SHOW! COLLEAGUES AND FRIENDS CONDESCEND WITH A SMILE YEAH BUT THIS IS MY CULTURE MAN, THIS IS MY HOME!" He sounds like an obnoxious 14 year old, and it sticks out like a sore thumb from his most cultured album to date, but throughout the entire song his heart is on his sleeve, and his jabs at "lacklustre scenesters from Shoreditch" are pretty funny, so it just about works. The one anomaly is Four Simple Words, a belligerent ode to punk rock concerts which manages to be likeable even though it features some genuinely terrible lyrics. Tape Deck Heart, though, is impressively focused and consistent, firing out a series of diverse, captivating songs about heartbreak. Aside from possibly Sleep is for the Week, Turner's albums have always been a little bit scattershot, veering from punk-folk ballads to angry protest songs to wry comments about his lifestyle, and this has made them feel a little bit disjointed. However, there is evidence to suggest that Frank has matured somewhat as an artist since England Keep My Bones, and this makes Tape Deck Heart arguably his strongest record yet. His songs are still charmingly down to earth playing in front of a packed Olympic Stadium hasn't elevated his ego even remotely, and in fact this album largely lacks the self-confident bravado of his previous four releases. You wouldn't be able to tell this instantly from Tape Deck Heart. Since the release of his last album, Frank Turner has gone from a skinny half-arsed English country singer to a skinny half-arsed English country singer who has sold out Wembley and performed at the Olympic Opening Ceremony.
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