“I don’t want to spend all my life indoors, laying low and waiting for the next storm. I don’t want to spend all my life inside, I want to step out and face the sunshine.” The Next Storm is absolutely the perfect song for an album titled, Positive Songs for Negative People. It’s a raucous, “rise up” song: “Rejoice, rebel, the storm is passed!” he shouts at the end, and if you’re not on your feet throwing your fists up and looking for a reason to rally, you shouldn’t be listening to music. This is what it all used to be about: Meaning, power, movement. Change. The power of belief, the soaring inspiration that come from a feeling and words and sound and Goddamn I love this record.
This is Turner’s sixth album and his most mainstream to date. It’s an album he deserves to make money off—if this guy can’t make a living making music, nobody should be able to.
It reminds me of Joe Strummer, my favorite musician of all time, and so many other folk-rockers who have brought passion and fire to the world only to be forgotten too soon.
And if it’s too much of a break from his more rootsy punk background, get the bonus album: All acoustic, and just as terrific.
