Perennial cork favs The Frank And Walters are back. A near death experience
followed by period of reflection, then a slate cleaning triple album of odds
and ends (Souvenirs) and now their first studio album in six years.
It's all come full circle: the guys find themselves at square one, making
infectious, charming and effervescent indie-rock.
The term reborn would not go amiss here. Exhibit A: album title A Renewed
Interest in Happiness. Exhibit B: opening lines of the feisty starting
point ‘Fight’ — “Walk out into the sunlight/It's a new
day/It's a new life”. Exhibit C: the quality of the songwriting.
There is an audible swagger on this recording; confidence bleeds from the
one song to the next. The sabre-rattling rock of ‘Country Boy’
reeks of fiery belligerence, its distorted hells bells riff lingering long
beyond the final bars. ‘You're the Greatest’ is grounded in a
scuzzy garage riff, but goes off-piste into the psych-dirge territory with
brain melting results.
The still make room for moments of warm spirited frivolity. The rattle and
hum of ‘City lights’ skips amiably along while the single
‘Miles and Miles’ is a typically absorbing and poignant slice of
jangle-pop. The slowcore acoustic closer ‘Johnny Cash’ would be an
affecting parting glass, were is not for the unnamed chaser tucked in well
after last call.
It's impossible to hold the Franks in anything but the fondest of regard and
now, just to reinforce that point, they have made their most complete album to
date.
Mark Keane
Rating: 8 / 10
