Album Review: Frankie & The Heartstrings - The Days Runaway

The latest in a long line of bands from northern England, Frankie & The Heartstrings happily wear their hometown on their sleeve, with influences covering Northern soul, punk, post-punk EDM and even a little New Wave thrown in to boot.

Openers I Still Follow You and That Girl, That Scene provide rock'n'roll whirl chords and round robin harmonies that set the tone for the album's energy level. Frankie and co. love a juxtaposition, with many of the happier tracks such as She Will Say Goodbye and Right Noises bearing quite dark lyrical content – Right Noises ending with the refrain, “I'm happy for you to kill me”. Invitation harks back to the calypso bar where they first met, while The First Boy and Nothing Our Way have a Joy Division drone to them. Losing A Friend is an anomaly on the album. With the minimalist instrumentation and slower tempo it sounds like it's been redone for one of the Rockabye kids CDs where The Ramones or Metallica are redone for babies' ears. Everybody Looks Better (In The Right Light) oozes in Northern charm, sounding suspiciously like it could have come from their debut recording Hunger, produced by smoothster Edwyn Collins. This latest effort is produced by Bernard Butler, most noted for his involvement with Suede, and the influence is palpable. The magic combination with Sarah Hall – vocalist from Let's Buy Happiness, who is the UK's sonic equivalent to Gossling – on the album closer Light That Breaks is surely his doing.

There's something more to this group than the usual disco-infused punk derivatives that seem to be hemorrhaging out of northern England. There's some wisdom, some variety and less bravado than usual. There are glimpses of life beyond their own egos.