THE RAUCOUS RACONTEUR

After seven records telling his own stories, Frank Turner turns his attention to the true tales of remarkable women in history

- charlie connell

Frank Turner is, at his core, a storyteller. Throughout his discography, in bands both hardcore and acoustic, Turner has told hundreds of different anecdotes. Among them are stories of great joy and stories of traumatic heartbreak. For his eighth album, “No Man’s Land,” Turner is telling tales unlike any he has told before.

“I tend to write in an autobiographical and confessional style,” Turner explains. “There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s what I’m known for and what I’m good at. I just thought it would be interesting as a writer to change that up and write from somebody else’s point of view, about other people’s lives and experiences.”

Inspired by a love of history—a flame that has been stoked by years of touring and all the reading time it allows—as well as the long tradition of storytelling songs in folk music, Turner set out to tell tales of historical figures that had been overlooked. The result is an album of 13 songs, all of them about women.