Frank Turner
Album: The Third Three Years
Label: Xtra Mile
Tracks: 21
Website: http://www.frank-turner.com

The man never seems to stop. Not content with releasing a new studio album last year, constant gigging in both arenas and back rooms, TV appearances and readying his tour diaries for publication next year, he's also found time to put together this third collection of rarities, made up of alternate versions, live recordings, sessions, digital only releases and B-sides.

By its very magpie nature, it's all over the place stylistically and, by his own admission, some of it is 'shonky or tattered', but is also documents a busy and diverse three years, sometimes in wholly unexpected ways.

There's a clutch of covers, kicking off with a suitably chest-beating version of Queen's Somebody To Love. That originally appeared on the B-side of I Still Believe but the other well known numbers are all previously unreleased and include a stripped back acoustic rework of Tom Petty's American Girl which digs into its deep sad heart, a similarly downcast reading of Born To Run, a faithful version of Townes Van Zandt's Pancho & Lefty and a take on McCartney's Live & Let Die (ok, that was released, but only on iTunes Canada) that features some particularly impressive what sounds like mandolin or ukulele work on the original's frantic flurries.

Originally on the Under The Influence split released with Franz Nicolay, a busker thrash through Noel Coward's There Are Bad Times Just Around The Corner doesn't really work, but this is more than made up for by the inclusion of rather more obscure numbers such as the piano accompanied covers of punk-country songwriter Cory Branan's The Corner (off the Bloodshot Records 20th Anniversary compilation) and the hitherto unreleased worn and wearied Bigfoot by indie Canadians The Weakerthans, an intimate home recording (complete with background noise) of Kiera for a tribute album to the late Tony Sly of Californian punk outfit No Use For A Name, and Fields Of June, a twangy guitar and fiddle backed country-hued duet single with Emily Barker.

The rest is all Turner, previously released tracks being Hits & Mrs (from Losing Days), Sweet Albion Days (off Polaroid Picture), Riot Song's response to the misdirected anger and lootings of the 2011 London riots (from Fuck The Fire) and former free download Happy New Year with Jon Snodgrass (complete with cod spontaneous chat intro a la those Crosby and Como TV Christmas specials) while there's also reworkings of four songs from Tape Deck Heart, a drone backed demo of Broken Piano, the emotionally raw Tell Tale Signs and folksy, versions of The Way I Tend To Be and Plain Sailing Weather, the latter three all featuring Matt Nasir from the Sleeping Souls on mandolin.

There's two live tracks, rowdy full band punky Dan's Song and, rather better, a passion-drenched piano accompanied The Ballad Of Me And My Friends from Twin Cities in Minnesota that has the crowd roaring out the last chorus. There's also one completely new number, a demo from the Tape Deck Heart sessions, in the form of Something Of Freedom, a harmonica blowing acoustic protest song about those "with my best interests at heart …who know not of what they are speaking" that harks to his Dylan roots, not least in borrowing the melody and structure to The Times They Are A'Changing, and, in its fire and indignation easily worth the price of the CD on its own.

Mike Davies