Craig Finn - We All Want The Same Things (Album Review)
Thursday, 30 March 2017
Written by Huw Baines
After a time, we stop noticing the things that stay the same and focus solely on what’s changed. So, for example, we can see that Craig Finn’s ‘We All Want The Same Things’ is a confident stylistic departure from his early solo work and that the bombast in his delivery has been toned down since the days when the Hold Steady were the world’s best bar band.
Both are important elements in the record’s success but, in truth, ‘We All Want The Same Things’ really hits home because of the same lyrical care and attention that has always been a priority. Here Finn adds warmth and colour to simple tales of characters fighting to get by in a world that doesn’t often have their best interests at heart, detailing relationships that are utilitarian rather than star-crossed. He finds people in the sombre moments after a funeral, amid petty drug deals and with loneliness circling overhead, giving each beat of their stories an empathetic gloss thanks to his ear for a line of dialogue.
The approach is perhaps best displayed on God in Chicago, the album’s thematic centre and one of the best songs Finn’s released under any name.
A slow-burn narrative of kids decamping to the big city in the shadow of tragedy, it's pocked with tiny details that eventually coalesce into a vivid, heartbreaking whole. Its chorus, where Finn’s voice is bolstered by backing vocals from Annie Nero, is a golden-hued elegy for two days away from it all.
Elsewhere, there’s the jaunty pop of Ninety Bucks and the rickety, horn-driven punk of Tracking Shots, with Finn bolstering each with the same conversational style to ensure the songs’ secrets are revealed in satisfying fits and starts. “Well, we probably should have tried the guy with the Dracula cape,” he sings of a drug transaction on the opener, Jester & June, for example. “Because other than the cape he was cool. He had that wild kind of sadness, like he knew something important.”
Producer Josh Kaufman, returning after helming Finn’s ‘Faith In The Future’, makes use of an expressive palette and furnishes each song with musical asides that fill in gaps rather than overpowering the songs’ storytelling mores. As a solo performer, Finn has never sounded this relaxed and it’s not a stretch to imagine that Kaufman’s input is a big reason for that.
‘We All Want The Same Things’ is collection of songs that deserves to be regarded alongside Finn's work with the Hold Steady and, before that, Lifter Puller. It shows a writer who won’t let the human element become swallowed up by the bleak machinations at the top of the political tree and a performer with an uncanny knack for making complex, often dispiriting, observations feel like an arm around the shoulder.
Craig Finn Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Sun April 16 2017 - RAMSGATE Music Hall
Wed April 19 2017 - LONDON Courtyard Theatre
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