Over the first ten years of his solo career, singer-songwriter Frank Turner recorded some fantastic material. His deeply personal songs touched on many subjects, from death, love, travel, friendship, lost weekends and politics. In short, in that time, he’s acted as a friend who’s been there, seen it all and is able to lend a lyrical tale of empathy whatever your personal situation. This time, though, he’s really not messing about: the commentary of ‘Be More Kind’ is a world away from the songs of youth, parties and camaraderie that peppered his early releases. It’s also musically far broader. A restless album, even; one that refuses to settle into any one style, sometimes with only Turner’s honest and personal lyrical concerns as an obvious link to the past. And while it isn’t a concept album, more than a few of its songs are connected to the universal themes of time and mortality.
Tag Archives: rock
THE GREAT 70s PROJECT: 1970/71 Revisited
Between May and July 2017, Real Gone embarked on an ambitious audio project. A huge library of streaming audio, ‘The Great 70s Project’ became one of the year’s most popular features.
The plan was to delve deep into the decade’s music, but dig much deeper than revisiting the hits. We hoped that by presenting the hits alongside some fabulous album cuts and neglected b-sides, our look at the decade would create new favourites and also encourage listens to long neglected albums.
SEASONS – Chapters EP
Within a year of forming, Bedfordshire based alt-rock metal band SEASONS (always capitalised) had released two EPs and embarked upon four tours. Obviously, they believe that it’s the hard work that gets you places, but what’s perhaps more impressive is how professional the band sounded straight off the starting blocks. Their second EP, ‘What Comes Around’ really captures a band keen to display a well honed, multi-layered sound while simultaneously really pushing for a distinctive identity. Sure, you’ll hear bits of other rock bands in there, from both alt-rock and emo spheres, and there’s a few clear influences, but rarely anything that feels like a direct lift.
Watch ‘1991’ the new animated video from The Fierce And The Dead
The Fierce And The Dead will release their anticipated third album ‘The Euphoric’ via Bad Elephant Music on May 18th.
The build up to the album release has already been exciting. The band have had their first sold out London headliner, pre-orders for a 2CD deluxe version of the album have almost sold out and the video for the album’s first single – the heavy and immense ‘Truck’ – went viral.
FLICKERTAIL – Hurry Up And Wait EP
Formerly known as The Bitter Sweethearts, the four musicians that make up Flickertail were drawn together by a love of classic rock. While their debut EP carries a very solid and classic sound, it never plays as if – like so many bands doing the rounds – they’re content with hammering out tried and tested clichés and trying to be a heavier version of Free or Rival Sons. Their work sometimes has an old soul and is often very melodic, but this EP seems very keen to shake things up in places, which in this case and a world of tired sounding rock acts, is a very good thing. The purists mightn’t like that, but it’ll be their loss.