Album #10 from Frank Turner – still resolutely standing up for what’s worth standing up for.

Release Date: 3rd May 2023

Label: Xtra Mile Recordings

Format: LP / CD / digital

A musician who has always worn his heart passionately on his sleeve, Frank Turner’s body of work is turning out to be a rollercoaster ride that mirrors his personal journey. “I’m 42,” he says, “which is not a sexy, rock’n’roll age.” Now a happily married man yet still with the touring bug biting hard, Undefeated finds him channelling his early hardcore punk fire while the poet in him finds yet more ways for us to share common ground and empathy.

He writes damn good songs too, adding how, “all through my career, I’ve been interested in writers like Loudon Wainwright III or The Hold Steady, people who write about adulthood, essentially.” A statement that gives a bit of a clue how far he’s travelled since Sleep Is For The Week, through the traumas that came out in Tape Deck Heart and into the reflections of Be More Kind.

Entering his forties and returning to be an angry man (his words…), he’s accompanied by the ever reliable Sleeping Souls – Ben Lloyd (guitar), Tarrant Anderson (bass), Callum Green (drums) and Matt Nasir (piano) – returning from their own outing on Just Before The World Starts Burning to accompany FT and less than a minute into Undefeated he’s boldly encouraging us “don’t take anyone’s shit.”

The combination of piledriving punk and passion fuelled outings with the subtlety of the voice breaking raw outpourings see FT retaining some of the raw energy of the FTHC album along with the emotional clout of A Wave Across A Bay. Undefeated comes peppered with songs of perfect power pop and the likes of the irreverent “I’m in love with the girl from the record shop” (one of three brilliant little vignettes – love to hear an album of these – that come in at under two minutes and remind us of the ‘campfire punk rock’ slogan).

As usual, amidst a few well placed ‘F’ words (for effect you know) life musings find FT having words with 15 year old Francis on Ceasefire find him reflecting on the “both of us want peace” and how the”twenties have been weird” on the perfect power pop of Pandemic PTSD along with a semi-hilarious lists of times and places he’s lost his sh*t.

And Undefeated wouldn’t be an FT album without an anthem or two to belt out with shouty gusto at one of the upcoming UK gigs. No Thank You For The Music would seem to fit the bill quite nicely and while the title track sounds like it should be a rousing chest beater (which it eventually does become in a most unusual Turner-like way) it sits comfortably alongside the intimate and reflective On My Way. The latter a song that sees a return to the subtlety of the folk troubadour delivery. The up close and personal/ live in your front room intimacy epitomises the final lap of Undefeated. The “pretending to be somebody else since I was just fifteen” slow build confessional, underwhelmed at who he was, imposter syndrome is quite touching.

Dare we say Frank is back at the doors that opened to reveal the inspirational fire of those first five albums – Week, Love/Ire, Tape Deck, Bones and Poetry? Undefeated has the ear;y doors impact to suggest that there could be some stayers in here.

Here’s one of Undefeated’s belters:

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