This is of course the new ‘hardcore’ (consume with pinch of salt) side-project of Frank Turner, an arrangement that sees him reunite with old friend and drummer Ben Dawson to help make people’s ears bleed, figuratively of course, one more time.
The first and most glaringly obvious thing that needs to be pointed out is that things definitely aren’t being taken as seriously this time round. As a band, Million Dead was too much of an intensely sobering endeavour to ever really cut itself enough slack and exploit the embittered ironies of its own songs with as much frivolous humour as ‘Casual Threats from the Weekend Hardmen’ does.
This new sound is nowhere near as big, moving or even melodic. Neither is there as much of an attempt to reveal and explore as there was in Million Dead. It doesn’t look to take you anywhere other than the slightly mischievous aim in which it was founded in the first place. It is a more straight-forward and earnest attempt to make loud and abrasive noise again. And it certainly is abrasive.
Because of this, the irony and lyrical rhetoric cuts with much less of a sour taste. However, in further inspection one could actually maintain that the subject matter does in many ways circle around the same sort of challenge to social norms and psyche, even if in a much smaller and metonymical basis, as MD classics such as ‘The Rise and Fall’ and ‘Charlie and the Propaganda Myth’.
Overall it leaves an impression that is less consuming of the listener, but more playfully wry. It’s terribly difficult to see how this project could ever experience the heights of accomplishment that Million Dead once enjoyed, albeit briefly, or it even really amounting to anything more than what, in essence just seems like a big, prolonged joke. But when things do come full circle again, such as in cases like this, as well as other bands of a similar age such as Hundred Reasons, it does always add a renewed perspective on the history of Million Dead and Mr Turner’s compelling musical story, as well what was a truly unique age in British music. And so we shall let our ears bleed for ever and on.
