The King Blues final album – Long Live The Struggle Review

The King Blues have released their final album ‘Long Live The Struggle’ and will be hoping that their message in this album gets heard.

Anyone that knows The King Blues knows what they are about and that is a very politically motivated band that wants to be a voice for the working class people and that is exactly what this album tries to do. They are a very underrated band and not enough people have heard their songs and I think this may be because you can’t pigeonhole them. Throughout the album you hear a range of genres and even sometimes in the same song they mix it up and use different styles which include folk, punk, rap and ska music. With their lively sounds and political lyrics it is an album you have to listen to and not something you can simply have on in the background.

The band believed this was as far as they can go and did not want to cheat the fans by making more and more albums when they knew they weren’t producing their best material. They make catchy songs and try to deliver a message in each song, the album begins with the song, ‘We Are What We Own’ which as the title suggests everyone is judged by what they own and those that have more will get the control. They also focus on the youth in particular and point out some problems in the UK, ‘ Can’t afford youth clubs but can afford to lock the youth up’ is a memorable quote as the lead singer is trying to say that boredom could be a reason for youths turning to crime and the government need to do more to help them.

There are many songs on the albums that wouldn’t look out of place in a protest as they sound like rallying calls, ‘We are the future’ builds into a rallying call, ‘Power to the People’ relies heavily on the lyrics and the drumming in the background and one of my favourite songs on the album, ‘Cant Bring Me Down’ which is a song that has quick rhyming over more of a drum and bass sound with a screaming chorus, the reason I like it is because you can feel the emotion of the song and how much it means to the lead singer and basically it is just a rant of what he feels. What makes this band so special is how quickly they can change their style, the very next song ‘Tear Us Apart’ has a reggae beat and couldn’t be any more different from the previous song.

Three songs that stick out to me are ‘Modern Life Has Let Me Down’ because the chorus is immense and very catchy, it is definitely something you can fist pump to. ‘When The Revolution Comes’ is similar in a way with its infectious upbeat rhythm combined with its darker and more angrier lyrics makes this song hit harder. Finally, the last song on the album ‘Keep The Faith’ is what The King Blues are all about and the message is to not give up. Starts off slow and soft but soon turns into a definite sing-a-long as he starts to shout louder the music builds in perfect timing and just reminds the fans how good The King Blues are.

So this is the end for The King Blues and I for one am sad about it because they gave their listeners something different and their lyrics actually had a meaning to them with important messages, I’m sure they have touched a lot of people but unfortunately not enough and it is a real shame they never made a major impact on the music charts.

Who is Frank Turner?

Frank Turner was chosen to warm up the Olympic opening ceremony and a lot of people may have been saying who is this guy?

Frank Turner performing at the opening ceremony

It was a surprise to me that he was chosen but after I thought about it for a while I realised it was a masterstroke and he was the perfect choice as he can perform just as brilliantly in front of a few people in a living room as he can in front of millions. With his lyrics so meaningful combined with his punk past he is in a quite rare genre of music which is folk-punk which is most likely the reason why not as many people will have heard of him. But, as he proved he is instantly likeable which inevitably leads to sing-along’s. Frank Turner is an outstanding individual but it is difficult to describe his sound at times, however he manages to draw in the crowds with his down to earth humour and joyful noise, add this to his clear passion for writing and performing music and you have someone that deserves a little more success than he has got in recent years.

‘Poetry of the Deed’ is the album I have chosen  to look at to show off some of Frank Turner’s skills and it begins brilliantly with an upbeat piano sound and tongue in cheek lyrics in  ‘Live Fast Die Old’ and then continues onto the brilliant song, ‘Try This At Home’ which has a punk ethic to it and can be described as quite frantic at times but the energy to it makes you want to repeat it over and over again. It is basically a song about following his lead and has some of the greatest and funniest lyrics in it, ‘No such as thing as rock starts they’re just people who play music and some are just like us and some of them are d**ks.’ This made me laugh because he isn’t taking himself too seriously and is taking a swipe at other artists who love themselves and more like tools that produce the same rubbish over and over again.

Turner has had some praise and some exposure in the past when the first single off the album ‘The Road’ was named hottest record in the world by Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1 when it was released. It is another first in the air song with an unforgettable chorus and this song in particular shows the charm to his voice which gives his music its personality.

‘Dan’s Song’ is another great song but the whole album seems to lack something and it is a fantastic place for new fans to start but if you are an older fan of Frank Turner then you will see a lot of songs that just aren’t quite up to his earlier standard and they seem to be missing something, in particular, ‘Sunday Nights’, ‘Richard Divine’ and ‘Isabel’. ‘Isabel’ is a strange song though because it has his usual good lyrics and is quite heartfelt but still doesn’t feel quite right.

‘Poetry of the Deed’ is a good album and I would recommend it to a lot of people but there are a lot of flaws to it and it isn’t quite as good as its predecessor ‘Love Ire & Song’ but if you are a big fan of the man then you should definitely get both.