Xtra Mile Recordings is pleased to reveal the tenth anniversary edition of Frank Turner’s third album Poetry of the Deed. This follows surprise first vinyl copies available during Frank’s third annual festival Lost Evenings III in Boston, MA, sold before a full live playthrough of the album on Friday 17 May 2019. We can now announce further pressings and where to find them. Buy your copy (or copies) here.

The limited edition record comes with lovingly-redesigned artwork on a gatefold mirror-board sleeve, embraced in a heavyweight outer slipcase, pressed on two 180g coloured vinyl. One vinyl contains the original album and the second is filled with never-before released album demos. It will be available in a variety of colour pressings as below:

Silver – available at Lost Evenings III and direct from Xtra Mile from 31 May
Gold – Banquet Records exclusive
White – European edition
Black – Standard edition available everywhere else

The vinyl also includes digital downloads of the demos, and full audio of the intimate, unforgettable Union Chapel set in Islington, London recorded 19 December 2009, only previously available as a bonus DVD as part of Take to the Road - Live at Shepherd’s Bush Empire.

Released in 2009 off the back of live favourite ‘The Road’, Poetry of the Deed showcased Frank’s new live band, now known as the Sleeping Souls, for the first time all together in the studio. Featuring the talents of Tarrant Anderson (bass), Ben Lloyd (guitar), Matt Nasir (keys and more), and Nigel Powell (drums), Poetry of the Deed marks the transition from solo folk traveler to eventual arena-conquering excellence with some of Frank’s most beloved songs.

Kicking off defiantly with his renewed sense of ambition on ‘Live Fast, Die Old’ - played through with pounding piano and searing chorus, sealed with “ba-ba ba ba ba” backing vocals from Nigel - it’s an enthralling rush that immediately introduces the band. From there, the acoustic flurry of ‘Try This At Home’ and ‘Dan’s Song’ deftly stir old and new together, while the previous threshold of volume and crescendo is breached with the title track, the potent rally-cry against tyranny on ‘Sons of Liberty’ and the folklore-esque fury of ‘Our Lady of the Campfires’, songs where the band fully let loose. But it’s in the slow build of ‘Isabel’, the emotional ebb and flow on ‘Faithful Son’, and the closing epic poem of ‘Journey of the Magi’ where everyone’s grip of dynamics brings true heart to the record.

Poetry of the Deed represents Frank’s clearest sign yet that he was heading away from humble origins to larger concerns, both in his writing – which runs the gamut between vulnerability in matters of love, building a life with someone else, and a fierce determination to break through his own limitations to reach goals he’d hitherto shrugged off as unlikely – and in sound. The Sleeping Souls would soon become an integral part of Frank Turner’s artistic development and rise in popularity and it all really started to come together on Poetry of the Deed.

Like the birds pulling strings from an old guitar on Chris Bourke’s elegant lino-cut artwork for the album, Frank was wresting control from his doubts and fears for his future. “Me and all my friends are poets of the deed / We’re exactly what this country needs / We scratch until we’re drunk, we drunk until we bleed / We are what we believe,” he sings on the title track, and he was telling his own truth that is the core of the album.

Tracklisting

Side A

Live Fast, Die Old
Try This At Home
Dan’s Song
Poetry of the Deed
Isabel
The Fastest Way Back Home
Sons of Liberty

Side B

The Road
Faithful Son
Richard Divine
Sunday Nights
Our Lady of the Campfires
Journey of the Magi

Side C

Faithful Son (demo)
The Fastest Way Back Home (demo)
Isabel (demo)
Our Lady of the Campfires (demo)

Side D

Poetry of the Deed (demo)
The Road (demo)
Try This At Home (demo)
Isabel (full band demo)
The Park (demo)