Is it cynical to say that Frank Turner’s new album, No Man’s Land, feels... gimmicky?
The eighth studio album from the self-styled troubadour tells the stories of 13 forgotten women from history, from Egyptian activist Huda Sha’arawi to Resusci Anne, who is “an apocryphal drowned virgin whose face was used as the model for the medical CPR mannequin across the world”.
Turner offers: “You can’t not write a song about a woman who died never having been kissed and then became the most kissed face in history.”
You could not, though — and Turner fails to answer, decisively, why he’s the best man to tell these women’s stories. Certainly in his hands, a few tracks veer on the parodic: Jenny Bingham’s Ghost, an antic folk tale about a 17th-century Camden landlady, features lines like “a fresh-faced lass/From Kentish Town she came”. One section in lead single Sister Rosetta sounds remarkably similar to the riff in the 2003 Fountains of Wayne song Stacy’s Mom — it was hard to think of anything else.
On the other hand, the jazz arrangement in Nica is joyful and accomplished, and The Perfect Wife and Silent Key are folky, melodic, lilting storytelling. Turner is back on home territory.
Still, it’s an incoherent offering. Rescue Annie, the mannequin song, is predictably jarring: “She isn’t going to know her place... the lioness will not be tamed,” Turner faux-snarls over a soaring indie rock chorus. This is No Man’s Land — but I’m not certain it’s for anyone, really.
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