Craig Finn goes for gravitas over guitars

Craig Finn is looking as clean cut as his new solo record.

Craig Finn, the bespectacled front man of The Hold Steady, has a solo debut out called Clear Heart Full Eyes. It's a nice, but mostly predictable sort of record -- the kind that you'd expect from a straight-forward rock and roll prose stylist like Finn.

For anybody well-versed in The Hold Steady, Finn's word-rich lyrical style is still there. As a solo artist, though, he steers clear of the wall-of-guitar sound that propels the best Hold Steady tunes. Here, guitars mostly provide the ambiance for a set of songs that swing from slow blues jams to alt country-ish whiskey drinkers.

Finn is a good story teller. And here, like in his work with The Hold Steady, the lyrics drawyou in. You know there's more going on then the usual vague lines about love or loss in the typical rock song. Yet Finn is never pretentious. He's always populist. And here the songs and lyrics seem to mesh well. His songs sound like conversations in bars, never declarations from the remove of a high rooftop. It's what I like about him.

Clear Heart Full Eyes sounds good at first listen, but there's not a lot of reason to come back for more. The record actually begins with the blues. "Apollo Bay" isn't Eric Clapton-awful blues, but its blues just the same. I have nothing against the blues, but it's such a predictable move for an aging rock singer. The effect is to create a record that sounds like it was made for adult alternative radio (for Philly Readers, it's sounds like a lock for a top 10 pick on WXPN). It sounds like a record written for Boomer rock critics.

In several songs here, however, Finn really accomplishes something new. "When No One's Watching" and "No Future," Finn has crafted some fine rock songs. Both sound fresh and free from the kind of easy genre identification that mar the rest of the record. They suggest he might have done better...

In fact, what tarnishes the rest of the record for me is just that. There are country tunes and slow noodlers that all com.e from the well-worn solo-record playbook. Perhaps Finn was too concerned to draw a distinction between his solo work and that of The Hold Steady. On one hand, it's fine rock music. It's just not ambitious. Perhaps that's fine, but I would like a little more. 

My point is this: Finn is a good songwriter and he's crafted a record that sounds really good. But that's about as good as any criticism this record deserves. I suspect -- and I know, I say this too often -- that he could have done betterClear Heart Full Eyes. I wish there was more gut here and less thoughtfulness. Clear Heart Full Eyes has some pretty terrific moments. The rest sound like a soundtrack for late night driving -- the kind of drive during which you're in danger of falling asleep at the wheel.