Craig Finn

We All Want The Same Things

Midwestern singersongwriter AKA Mr Hold Steady’s third solo road trip. Three albums in and there’s something liberating about Craig Finn’s solo career. Those who find The Hold Steady’s relentlessness a bit much will find songs with more room to breathe here. As on 2015’s Faith In The Future, this third solo outing shows Finn still writing wordy story songs, but the breathing space elevates those words. Jester & June sets the tone, as Finn sings about a fake drug deal over squiggly jazz saxophone. This is familiar territory, but his ability to put you right there in the nightclub bathroom is a gift which only deserts him on the album’s final lap. Then, when you think he’s spent, there’s the closing Be Honest, where woodwind and brass help colour a tale of fortysomething angst and Finn delivers the album’s greatest line: “It really sucks getting sick on the bus/Even worse when the teenagers cheer.” Mark Blake