Anyone who has been on this site for any decent length of time knows how much I adore Frank Turner. Heck, just check out how much I gushed over his last album. He was a huge part of my teen years, and has helped me through a lot. So we all knew I HAD to review this latest release too. I’ve been impatiently waiting for this since it was announced, and the singles have done a good job at adding even more to that hype. So, without further ado, let’s dive in!
Frank’s poetic, powerful lyricism cuts through immediately, his vocals opening first track ‘Do One’ over his acoustic guitar. It’s a song about accepting yourself and fuck everyone else, a topic that Turner does perfectly. The rest of the band explode in with the chorus, adding the punky distortion element to the sound. It’s a fun, interesting dynamic for sure, as the distortion drops back out for the verses. Meanwhile, the chorus is catchy as anything, especially with the backing vocals. It’s all typical Frank stuff, but it’s so good and the perfect way to open an album like this. It immediately made our playlist!
‘Never Mind the Back Problems’ turns the punk dial up to 11, a short, sweet, sub-two-minute, bouncy, dancy banger. It’s something I’m already desperate to see live, as I feel like it’d have the whole crowd going nuts. It’s a fun song, Frank and his band working their ass off and sounding like they’re enjoying themselves. We even get an awesome little Celtic-style guitar solo tucked away in the middle of it. It’s a sprint of a track and fucking awesome! It gives off big Flogging Molly/Dropkick Murphy’s vibes in all the best ways. And once again, Frank’s lyrics are on point, and it’s another catchy song!
As if trying to give the listener whiplash, ‘Ceasefire’ drops the pace back down, it being more of a modern indie ballad than anything else. Having said that, it also gives off ever so slight Bryan Adams/Bruce Springsteen vibes. It’s not a bad song at all, and once again the lyrics are a major highlight of it. However, compared to the previous couple of tracks, this is less my sort of thing.
Thankfully ‘Girl from the Record Shop’ ups the energy and punk vibes again. It’s a modern, 90’s radio punk sound compared to ‘Never Mind…’, but it’s still a massively fun, dancy track. The same can be said for the likes of ‘No Thank You for the Music’. In fact, said track is another huge highlight of the album, and another that makes the playlist. It’s fun and catchy and impossible not to tap your foot to. Both tracks are awesome, and go back to Frank’s roots the most out of any other tracks on the album. It’s almost a shame we don’t get a tad more punk-infused folk throughout, but the rest of the album is that good it’s hard to complain too much!
Tracks like ‘Pandemic PTSD’ and ‘International Hide and Seak Champions’ sound like only really Frank can. They draw together all of his inspirations, be it punk, folk, indie, rock’n’roll, and fuse them perfectly. They’re closer to the sound of some of his biggest songs; think ‘Get Better’, ‘Recovery’ or even ‘Haven’t Been Doing So Well’. The former is a horribly relatable song with an awesome riff running through it. Having said that, I did think we’d have gotten away from songs about the pandemic by now. Meanwhile the latter is just as catchy, an arena-filling, massive chorus about running away with your partner and starting a new life together. It’s a beautiful, fantastic rock song that I’m sure that more than a few of us have thought about following through with over the years. It’s another that makes it onto our playlist with ease!
Single ‘Letters’ is another very Trank T song, reminding me more of something off Be More Kind than anything. It’s an interesting, bittersweet track, and one just brimming with emotion. Of course the lyrics are captivating, but some of the bass work during the verses is also incredible here. Honestly it sounds like the plot of a movie, which is a real testament to the visual storytelling ability of Frank. In terms of the instrumentation, it’s pretty standard stuff, but it’s a fantastic song really boosted up to a top level by the lyrics.
‘East Finchley’ is an emotional ballad, and one on par with any other he’s done, outside of ‘Wave Across a Bay’. It opens on this massive sound of guitars and drums, it setting a dramatic tone right from the offset, before dropping down into the more acoustic, slower, stripped-back style that the rest of the song follows. And once again, Frank’s visual storytelling on this track is truly phenomenal. It’s an amazing, emotional song that honestly gave me goosebumps. Check this out!
‘The Leaders’ is one-and-a-half minutes of bouncy, acoustic pop-punk that sadly spits a lot of truth. It’s a complete tear down of governments in general, as well as a rebellion anthem, but written in such a fun, catchy way that it’s hard not to dance along. And we get a sweet harmonica solo in the middle. It’s a fun, infectiously catchy song that is another that I can’t help but sneak onto the playlist!
By the time we’d reached ‘Show People’, I’d been given that much awesomeness that a few slower, indie-folk tracks lost my interest just a tad by the end of the album. Don’t get me wrong, the final four tracks on the album are all awesome, with ‘Somewhere Inbetween’ being a particular highlight for me, given how close to home it hit. The closing/title track is also a beautiful, emotion-filled piano ballad. In my humble opinion, however, it would have been nice to have something a bit more upbeat in the final third of the album, as well as these. Throw ‘Girl From the Record Shop’ in the middle here and it would have held my attention just a little more. Still, all four tracks are amazing, and ‘Undefeated’ is the perfect, epic closing track for the album. The horns in the final chorus are incredible.
Overall: I enjoyed this! I feel like I have such an interesting relationship with Franks music post Ten for Ten (as do a lot of people, I imagine) that it’s so hard to compare any of it to that first decade too closely. Be More Kind is incredible, No Man’s Land is experimental brilliance, and FTHC is actually one of my favourite albums by him and felt like a return to form after Covid caused a few years of collab and different albums. I don’t get the same immediate feelings with this album as I did with FTHC, though. Undefeated is a great release, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t hit quite as hard for me. There aren’t as many instantly classic songs on this, but it does feel like an album with more of a sense of direction. Frank has self-admitted to getting older and changing with age, and I think I’m going to need another few lessons to follow him in that change. It’s still a great album, for sure, but lands closer to Be More Kind and Poetry of the Deed than Tape Deck Heart or England Keep my Bones. I very well may change with subsequent listens, but right now outside of the few standout tracks, I wouldn’t hurry back to listen to the album as a whole, still, Frank has done amazingly here, and I can’t give it anything less than an…
The Score: 8/10