Review Summary: A record by the average man for the average man, Love Ire & Song is one of the pinnacles of modern folk music.
It’s easy to think of recording artists, whose lives and daily doings are glorified and contorted throughout magazines and websites, as idols, perhaps even deities, living in a world separate from the realm of common man, a carefree world where the problems that plague us are virtually nonexistent. Frank Turner, however, makes it a point to instantly clarify that he is, just like his listeners, really just a normal 21st-century man facing the same challenges as everybody else. And herein lies the greatest strength of his magnum opus,
Love Ire & Song: every word that he sings pertains to the lives and troubles of his listeners, despite the fact that the record is entirely personal.
I'm not as awesome as this song makes out
I'm angry, underweight and sketching out
I'm building bonfires on my vanities and doubts
To get warm just like everybody else.
The search for identity amidst modern confusion, the disintegration of love and friendship, and other struggles that are in this day and age universal are expounded on in the album, and somehow Turner manages to make these age-old themes seem refreshingly original. Armed with only wit and optimism, Turner faces all of these hardships and comes out hopeful and accepting, if not always victorious.
And I miss you, you're busy too
We call each other up, when we're messed up
And say we'll meet in the New Year
But it's perfectly clear we'll do no such thing
Come the spring
What separates the lyrics of
Love Ire & Song from those of nearly any other contemporary folk album is the genuinely skillful manipulation and striking of delicate balances, with the texts managing to be pleasantly straightforward, intelligent and appropriately humorous, without ever becoming blunt, pretentious, or trivial. Turner knows when to be lighthearted and when to adopt a more somber tone, and while quips such as Reason To Not Be An Idiot’s
I bet she sits at home and listens to The Smiths, Deep down she's just like everybody else never fail to bring a smile to one’s face, some more sensitive listeners will find it genuinely hard to not start bawling during Long Live The Queen or Jet Lag.
And yet, even without the lyrics,
Love Ire & Song would be quite a fine record. Most of the music is built around warm punk or folk melodies sung over acoustic guitar strums, but the inclusion of anomalies such as wistful, piano-based ballads (Jet Lag) and energetic rockers (Imperfect Tense) creates more than enough variety to stop the album from ever becoming monotonous. Turner throws legions of vocal hooks at listeners, and so just about everything here is highly memorable, and the music always fits the tone of the lyrics.
It’s impossible to deny that
Love Ire & Song is really just a personal statement about the victories and defeats of one man (though, it should be mentioned, one that is written exceptionally well), and yet it manages to be an album that can be universally identified with and that will be just as relevant fifty years from now. And really, what more could you want?
5/5
