Craig Finn

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Craig Finn

Craig Finn "Clear Heart Full Eyes" album

- Release date : January 2012 -

Clear Heart Full Eyes is the debut solo album by American singer and guitarist, Craig Finn, released on January 24, 2012 through Vagrant Records.

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"Clear Heart Full Eyes" album reviews

Whether he’s spinning tales of arson and murder over the angular, synth-kissed indie rock of Lifter Puller, or recounting the excesses and fatal flaws of his fictional Twin Cities denizen with the Hold Steady’s swagger-filled bar rock behind him, Craig Finn has always had a way of blending in with whatever music he’s accompanied by without losing his writerly voice. With its mellow, lonely sound, Finn’s solo debut, Clear Heart Full Eyes, finds the songwriter looking for a change of sonic scenery that feels more like a vacation from his other work than a departure, with the singer maintaining his identity as a songwriter as he adapts to a more distinctly country sound. Over the course of its 11 tracks, the album unfolds like a series of vacation snapshots that show Finn being himself in a new locale. Unsurprisingly, the singer is able to deftly adapt to his new surroundings, with his narrative, story-filled lyrics taking on a newfound earnestness that reflects the plaintive strains of pedal steel that weaves in and out of these more restrained arrangements. This ability to meld with, rather than take over, the songs he’s on is a testament to Finn’s abilities not just as a lyricist and a singer, but as a raconteur. Finn’s guileless, observational create a clean, engrossing narrative that allows listeners to escape into another world for a few minutes at a time. Though this kind of approach doesn’t leave a whole lot up to interpretation, its directness gives you the opportunity to contemplate the “who,” “where,” when,” and “why” of the songs rather than just the “what.” Anyone expecting the bar rock bravado of the Hold Steady is probably going to be disappointed by Clear Heart Full Eyes’ subdued vibe, but anyone looking for more of Craig Finn’s sprawling tales will feel right at home.

*** by Gregory Heaney, All Music Guide ***

In five stellar LPs as the word-spluttering frontman for the Hold Steady, Craig Finn proved that nobody can match his ear for the way American losers talk. And in a Finn song, they're usually talking themselves into their next doomed move. Cut with a country-rock pickup band, his first solo album is full of bleakly funny noir tales. His characters are like the psycho-eyes loners from On the Beach or Nebraska, except strung out on religion. Finn's gotten canny enough as a singer to pull off a tour de force like "Western Pier," the chilling ballad of a drifter with grudges against the world that not even Jesus can avenge.

*** by Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone ***

Yes, the first solo album from Hold Steady singer Craig Finn eponymously references Friday Night Lights, the late, great TV drama about how small towns can feel like one big family—or inescapable coffins. But otherwise, the songs on Clear Heart Full Eyes have no connection to the series beyond a similar feel for the scattered details that make up the lives of average, unexceptional people yearning for the chance to be anything but. (An exception might be “When No One’s Watching,” about a local hero turned scoundrel that sounds like Tim Riggins 20 years later.)

Over the course of five albums with the Hold Steady, Finn’s played the narrator in tales of teenaged debauchery and twentysomething ennui. But on Clear Eyes, the distance between Finn and his characters has narrowed; these people are older, not terribly wiser, and, like the cash-strapped couple in “Terrified Eyes,” fearfully facing down middle age with limited options. It’s a bleaker vision than what Finn typically offers on Hold Steady albums, and it’s reinvigorated him as a songwriter.

That goes double for the music on Clear Heart, which Finn created in collaboration with musicians from Austin (where he recorded the album with Spoon producer Mike McCarthy). Finn has expressed a kinship with singer-songwriters and country-rockers in recent years, but with The Hold Steady, those influences tend to get drowned out by the bombastic guitars and party hollers for massive nights. On Clear Heart, they finally get a chance to bloom, with Finn getting comfortable with bluesy keyboards and sweeping steel-guitar licks on the swampy opener “Apollo Bay” and more down-home strummers like “New Friend Jesus” and “Balcony.” Only the classic-rock-referencing “No Future”’ sounds anything like a Hold Steady song.

Which is a good thing, because coming after The Hold Steady’s tired-sounding 2010 release, Heaven Is Whenever, it’s nice to hear Finn working in new sonic territory while still sounding like the same old storyteller obsessed with falls from grace and calls for redemption. It seems unlikely that Clear Heart will influence the direction of the next Hold Steady record, but as a solo artist, Finn has created a new world of characters and songs that’s rich enough on its own, and worth someday revisiting.

*** by Steven Hyden, The A.V. Club ***