Frank Turner: FTHC

fter Frank Turner attracted attention in the early 2000s as the lead singer of the punk rock band Million Dead, the British musician launched his solo career as a singer-songwriter. With success: To date, he has released eight studio albums, the last four of which landed in the top three of the UK charts. 2022 is now album number nine. "FTHC" is the name of the follow-up to 2019's "No Man's Land", which was dedicated to the stories of some great but largely unknown women in history. The album title, the abbreviation "FTHC", stands for "Frank Turner Hardcore" and is a tribute to the logos of US hardcore bands of the early 80s. On the idea, Turner said in an album teaser, "I think this record will surprise some people. It just has a kind of attitude and dirtiness [...] about it. I think after doing a record that was more about electronic music, and then kind of a historical folk album, that it really redefines my purpose as an artist and clears away some cobwebs. There's a lot of material on this album where I really decided to take the gloves off to talk about personal issues and not allow myself to censor myself, to just say the most direct and raw things that I can say. [...] I wanted this to be not just a sonically aggressive record, but one that was sort of made to be played live." he recorded 14 new songs for it at Abbey Recording Studios near Oxford. Rich Costey (Foo Fighters, Muse, Biffy Clyro) handled production and mixing Back in May, the first single "The Gathering" was released, featuring Muse drummer Dom Howard and Jason Isbell. Single number two arrived in September with "Haven't Been Doing So Well," a catchy, upbeat song that reflects on the heaviness of the last few years. "It's exciting to finally bring the new music I've been working on into the world after the last miserable 18 months. It's been a difficult time for a lot of people and their mental health, myself included, and it's important to me to be open about it, so this is a song about anxiety and the struggles that come with it," Turner says.