Craig Finn’s voice has always been a sort of homecoming, full of a deadpan warmth as familiar as the Freudian beggars and sinners of The Hold Steady’s discography. But behind his mumbling crawl and doped-up heroes, Finn’s usually had a backing band flex some bar-rock muscle. There was always a Lifter Puller with post-Fugazi brawn; always a Hold Steady hiding in the heartland bars.
Solo, Finn is the more modest type. His characters may still struggle with addiction and redemption, but there’s no Twin Cities epics to spur piano volleys and guitar solos. Instead, he’s tuned down, thinking inward as a few chords are plucked, a drum machine cranks and a lead guitar groans.
“Newmyer’s Roof,” the lead single for Finn’s upcoming Faith in the Future, is the Hold Steady crooner at his quietest. He strums a guitar with a Tunnel of Love production, melting his single into an anonymous heartland sound. It runs the risk of sounding generic — how many neo-Springsteenian balladeers play the same chords?
But Finn’s always stood out for his storytelling. And while he’s not growling allegories and sweet somethings to the heavens, he’s still weaving another sharpened sermon for his Doubting Thomas. “Newmyer’s Roof” draws on his halcyon days, when he still had a career to carve; days when he watched two towers fall against a September sky.
Even as the world grinds on, Finn finds his light at the end of the tunnel. It’s a hope he wishes Tom could find. Calling in that familiar, buoyant drawl amid a heartland backdrop, Finn turns and asks: “Tom, there must be something you believe?”