Frank Turner has teased an "aggressive" return to his roots for his next full length album.
The ‘Be More Kind’ singer’s most recent LP was 2019’s folk collection ‘No Man’s Land’ – a concept album about women from history – but now the 38-year-old musician looks set to take another turn with his new material.
He exclusively told BANG Showbiz: "I’m not going to tell you about it right now because I want it to be a surprise to people. And I think it will be, I think it’ll be a pleasant surprise to some people.
"As I’m hoping is becoming clear to people by now, I try and take a different tact with every record that I make, I don’t wanna repeat myself. I don’t wanna bore either myself or my audience, you know? So I’m definitely looking at a different stylistic approach and it’s exciting.
"I’ll give you one word, which is ‘aggressive’, and we’ll leave it there. You know, I did a dance pop record and I did a folk record, and obviously a large part of me is rooted in the world of punk and hardcore, and I’m missing that. So, that’s all I’m gonna say!"
Frank – who first burst onto the music scene with post hardcore band Million Dead in the early 2000s and has more recently used noise rock project Mongol Horde as his release – also hinted at other exciting releases and announcements on the way, with plans for live and rarities collections being moved forward with tour dates on hold
He added: "Why not, you know what I mean? There is quite a lot of stuff coming down the pipeline for me, which is exciting."
As well as his ongoing Independent Venue Love live stream series – which sees Frank performing a weekly concert from his flat to raise money for venues impacted by the coronavirus pandemic – Turner has also been working hard on his new material.
He said: "My big project at the moment is writing and demoing a new album and I was planning on doing as much of that as I could in hotel rooms and on tour buses. It turns out I now have a lot of time to do that! I have a lot of new material, I’m feeling pretty good about it."
The ‘I Still Believe’ singer is well aware of his music splitting critics – and his own fanbase – when he takes things in a different direction, but he doesn’t concern himself with that when he’s writing.
He explained: "I’ve been doing this way too long to give too much of a f**k about people’s responses.
"Not least because, for a long time now every f***ing album review I ever get says the last record was great, and this one sucks.
"And it’s like, ‘You’re the same person who said that last time around! I’ll just wait two years until you like this record!’ "
* Frank Turner’s Independent Venue Love concert series continues next week with ‘Poetry of the Deed’ in full on Facebook Live.