It is a concept album with songs about women from history, often with connections to music.[4]
Background
The album was announced alongside the release of the single "Sister Rosetta" on July 3, 2019.[5] Turner wrote the album as a way of drawing attention to the lives of "fascinating women" whose amazing lives were overlooked due to their gender.[6] These women include Byzantine princess Kassiani, Huda Sha'arawi, Nannie Doss, Nica Rothschild, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Jinny Bingham, Dora Hand and the CPR training manikinResusci Anne.[7] Alongside the album's release, Turner and Somethin' Else released a podcast entitled Tales From No Man's Land in which he discusses the story of every woman that the songs are based on.[8] The album also features a new recording of the song "Silent Key" previously released on Turner's sixth album Positive Songs for Negative People.[9]
The album received generally favorable reviews with an aggregate score of 63/100 on Metacritic.[16] Many praised Turner's return to folk instead of the indie pop sound of his previous album Be More Kind.[1] However, the idea of the album saw much controversy, and the album received incredibly negative reviews from publishers such as The Independent and NME. The Independent described the album as "extreme mansplaining" and criticised the instrumentation as being "plodding" and Turner's limited vocal range being incredibly evident.[13]NME stated that the album was too similar to Turner's previous work, leading to the voices of the woman involved being completely overshadowed.[2]The Mic, however, argued that No Man's Land succeeded as an "astoundingly versatile and sensitive" concept album, noting that "overwhelmingly Turner opts for well realised curveballs as opposed to safe and unadventurous folk music".[17]
Track listing
All tracks are written by Frank Turner, except where noted
