Album Review: Mortal Cafe

Torn Chorus’s, Mortal Cafe arrives like a friend who has been quietly writing postcards for years to you and you finally decided to read them aloud. It is intimate without being precious, warm without getting saccharine, and it wears its DIY heart on its sleeve. The kind of album that sounds like someone made it in the kitchen and then polished it just enough to let the songs breathe. Released on 16th February 2026, the album collects singles that have been trickling out on Bandcamp over the last few years.

The name behind the Torn Chorus project is Franklin Davis. He is a New Zealand‑based multi‑instrumentalist who writes, records, and produces much of his own material, and that DIY ethic extends to everything he puts out: singles, videos and the digital artwork that wraps each release. He prefers to keep things close and personal rather than parade a production team, so the work feels like one creative voice shaping both sound and image.

His photography and visual work lean toward muted but heavily layered imagery, modern aesthetics, candid frames, soft colour grading, and a slightly nostalgic palette that makes the images feel like found Polaroids from a road trip. He often blends simple portraiture with textured overlays and subtle collage, matching the songs’ intimate moods rather than competing with them. The videos and single art favour quiet moments: from a cartoon style shopping bag checkout scene, a sun‑faded café table, and other dreamlike or personal memories. The visuals clearly show that the same person who wrote the songs is also designing their sleeve. It is all part of that one‑person‑band charm. Music and imagery born from the same late‑night editing session, honest artistic and handcrafted.

Time Is The Enemy opens the album with a steady, insistent pulse and a vocal that sits close, like someone telling you about a secret in the car at night. Released as a single on 16 February 2026, the song leans into late-drive melancholy and sets the tone: reflective, urgent, quietly hopeful. On his YouTube channel he calls his music videos often Cinematic Alternatives, and this highlights his skills in photography and digital artwork. This includes occasional surrealistic themes that you need to see to fully appreciate, adding another dimension beyond the album alone, which makes this album even more of an art statement to enjoy.

Crimson Autograph follows with jangly guitars and a chorus that sneaks up on you. It is bittersweet and oddly pleasing, the sort of tune you hum under your breath while making tea. The single first appeared on Bandcamp in March 2025, where he also shared some personal notes about the lyrics. The title borrowed a line from Graham Parker’s Don’t Ask Me Questions, and a compact meditation on mortality. It even doubled as an old band name.

He turns the dial up a touch with Counter Attack: clipped guitars, a beat‑kick rhythm, and a vocal that edges toward defiance. It is compact but keeps going with an addictive kick, Torn Chorus attempts a tight pop-rock moment without losing that home-studio charm. Released in March 2025, showing just shy of 1,000 plays on Spotify, the song is slowly finding traction.

Mechanical High is playful and slightly motorik, a track that feels like a cassette tape of summer afternoons with the volume turned up. There is a mechanical joy to it, a wink in the arrangement that keeps things light while the meaning is all about our overuse of plastics that have been going on for many decades now. Some clever mixing and voice edits make this a stronger song.

Euphrates is the record’s patient river: spacious, slow-building, and emotionally generous. It is one of the album’s joyful songs with a reflection on the strength of a river. All the metaphors of our world if we compare it to our own body. Important rivers seen from space showing power as our own heart lets life flow through our body. Space age or soul reflection, a melody on a guitar letting time pass.

Released before the album itself in August 2024, Another Story is an homage on the many different faces we get through life. Inspired by the constant changing personas of David Bowie, it is a tribute to choices we have, make, and get through during our life. It is honest and small in the best way, still letting us remember a hero that was thought to be always with us.

Then, Turn Back History lets the strings really take centre stage. It’s not the most modern song on the album, but it proves that a good guitar‑heavy track can still be reinvented in modern times, it is a neat time-bender.

While Sing For You is a tender ballad, with simple arrangement, it has direct sentiment. It is the track that lets you imagine a far bigger band then just Franklin on his own. Influences of R/B rock of bigger bands simmer through. Released in November 2023, it shows the album was really a work of many years and this song is meant for a big band on a big stage.

Symbols (Acoustic Version) pares things right. The acoustic version sparked me to re-listen to the non-acoustic version of 2019. His electric surf/rock sounding guitar now replaced by much warmer strings. In this version it places it in a setting of the album cover art. I imagine hearing it come from that sunlit corner of the mortal café.

Golden starts closing the album as a warm, sunlit note this NZ style beach surf rock with gold light shining through. The song that in my view has the best vocals, and a holiday feeling might land this on your “relaxed songs” list.

The album that is playing as a good background to an afternoon at home is a true collection of work he made over years. 50 minutes later and Sunshine Mind brings this album to a close. It leaves you with a mental picture of Aotearoa’s natural beauty.

By feel, Torn Chorus sits somewhere between glossy late-night hooks and intimate singer-songwriter confession: think the late-drive sheen of The War on Drugs, the quiet confession of Elliott Smith, the pastoral warmth of Bon Iver, the small-venue charm of Nick Drake, and the late-night pop mood of The National. Specific singles like Euphrates and Another Story point to lo-fi indie folk and classic singer-songwriter storytelling as clear influences. A heavy DIY home style approach makes for some less perfect moments in voice, but knowing all sounds are created in one mind is impressive.

Production is the album’s honest currency. These are home-studio textures and occasional tape-like warmth, close-mic vocals, and arrangements that favour feeling over polish. Torn Chorus plays multiple instruments and handles his own edits and production. The cover art and visuals match the music’s lived-in mood: vivid photography, the kind of imagery that feels like a Polaroid left on a café table.

Live, these songs should translate beautifully. Stripped-down sets will let the lyrics breathe, while a small band could bring out the record’s more propulsive moments. There is a real small room magic here, songs that invite singalongs and late-night listening in equal measure.