Frank Turner — England Take My Bones. Out today, Epitaph Records.

I have a ridiculous number of feelings about the new Frank Turner album, England Keep My Bones, which came out today. I have a ridiculous number of feelings about Frank Turner, frankly, which if you are Pam or Megan you know, and if you are neither of them, you don’t know but you’ve probably heard me say “AND ALSO … FUCK YOU” which was an addition to my lexicon courtesy Frank and his video camera and his video diaries, which saved my life last November.

I have a lot of feelings about his new album, and about the first three tracks on Love Ire & Song which might be the most perfect first three tracks on any album ever, and about Frank in general, but mostly I have a whole fucking lot of feelings about this chorus in ‘I Am Disappeared’:

And on the worst days, when it feels like life weighs ten thousand tonnes
I sleep with my passport, one eye on the back door
So I can always run, I can get up, shower and in half an hour I’d be gone

I have a lot of feelings about this album, about ‘Eulogy’ and its sadness and ache, about ‘I Still Believe’ and its fuck you anthem, about ‘If I Ever Stray’ and the way it makes me weep like a baby. I didn’t love it on first listen, which is okay because I know I’ll never love a Frank album the same way that I love LI&S. I love that album in a way that’s lifesaving and heart-wrenching. But the more I listen to it, the more I find secrets buried in it, and the more the line and in half an hour I’d be gone digs at my heart and my mind and the way I am living my life these days.

I have a lot a lot of feelings about this album, and about a variety of things these days, but mostly I am thinking about ‘I Am Disappeared’, and about these lines from album-opener ‘Eulogy’: but on the day I die, I’ll say at least I fucking tried/and that’s the only eulogy I need. At least I fucking tried. What a heartbreaker, Frank.

Nothing on this album is ‘Photosynthesis’, but nothing ever will be. This album is good. It’s really, really good, and it’s sad and fresh and it has choruses that are meant to be shouted along in a crowd. The more I listen to it, the more I fall in love. Which is exactly how Frank got me the first time around, and he’s still at it.

This is not a photo of Frank Turner, because Frank Turner does not love me and keeps not playing in the Triangle. This is a photo of Ben Nichols of Lucero, though, a band who toured with Social D and Frank last year, and who Frank hilariously refers to as Ken Bichols in all his tour diaries. It’s the closest I can do.