It’s almost difficult to dislike an album as inherently positive as Be More Kind. In today’s draining political and cultural climates, Frank Turner not only believes that change is possible, but that it begins within each of us. In fact, if there’s an overarching criticism to be made about the album, it’s that these songs tend to veer into the brand of vague optimism that’s better employed lining the inside of Hallmark cards. But sometimes, even those messages can be refreshing to hear, and considering the relatively low energy on display, Turner’s heart, technical ability, and good intentions carry Be More Kind a considerable distance.

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Album sequencing is a tricky thing. When it works, sequencing should feel so natural that it becomes impossible to imagine the album in question being presented in any other way. Perfect sequencing can bring the themes of an album into clear and pointed relief, and can hide the flaws of an album’s weak songs while using the best ones as big peaking payoffs. In a way, the art of sequencing is as important for an album—and as difficult to master—as the art of songwriting itself. When track order is bad, it can push you into viewing an album less as cohesive artistic statement, and more as a collection of tracks. But when clear painstaking attention has been paid to finding the perfect sequencing, it can legitimately make an album.

There is nothing new I can say about Frank Turner that I didn’t say when I reviewed his Rock & Roll EP last year. In that review I laid out my thoughts about Turner, heavily praising him for his too-punk-for-punk-music brand of acoustic-ish folk rock. Even though I praised that EP for what it was, I can’t say it really revealed what listeners would be getting with Turner’s next record. England, Keep My Bones is Turner’s fourth full-length, and it is with no doubt or hesitation whatsoever that I gladly report this is his best record. England, Keep My Bones is 12 songs of Turner’s best lyricism, musicianship and energy all compiled into what will go down as his defining effort.

Turner’s lyrics have always been up-front and real, and opener “Eulogy” delivers on an ultra-personal level. It’s basically a short poem that lets him get something off his chest while serving as a disclaimer that England, Keep My Bones is the best he can offer: “Not everyone grows up to be an astronaut / Not everyone was born to be a king / Not everyone can be Freddy Mercury / Everyone can raise a glass and sing / Well I haven’t always been a perfect person / No, I haven’t done what mom and dad had dreamed / But on the day I die I’ll say, “Well at least I fucking tried” / That’s the only eulogy I need.”