There's not a lot of sunshine in
Craig Finn's world. His songs are full of people whose lives are going in the wrong direction, partly because of bad luck but mostly as a consequence of poor choices and a lack of options. Poverty, drug addiction, and depression are recurring themes in his lyrics, and the moody tone of his melodies reinforces the dour mood in these songs. But if
Finn's characters aren't having a lot of laughs, their stories aren't depressing; he clearly feels compassion for his lost souls, and his gifts as a writer make these tales honest and compelling, the stuff of real lives even when those stories are short on good times. As good as his work with
the Hold Steady has been,
Finn stepped up as a tunesmith on his second and third solo efforts, 2015's
Faith in the Future and 2017's
We All Want the Same Things, and 2019's
I Need a New War shows he's continuing to mature into the poet laureate of the decaying side of the Rust Belt. While the songwriting is similarly strong on these sessions, the production and arrangements (
Josh Kaufman was at the controls and played most of the instruments) cut deeper, with a cool R&B influence audible in the sharp guitar patterns, retro-keyboard sounds, and use of horns, giving the album a big-city blues feel that's a good fit for the downbeat themes of the songs. And while
Finn isn't always a great singer, he's a superb actor, delivering performances that never sound less than authentic no matter whom he's supposed to be at any given time. After a pair of impressively strong solo releases,
Craig Finn has made it a hat trick with
I Need a New War, and the passion and superb craft of these songs make this a must for anyone who cares about American songwriting. ~ Mark Deming