Nashville-based singer-songwriter Jeff Finlin started his career in the Mid-West as a rock drummer.   This latest solo album shows that he has made a smoothly-executed transition from behind the drums to frontman. 

A highly distinctive vocalist whose taut warble and saturnine songs weave an often absorbing spell, this is a characteristically bluesy excursion.   His songs often sound like well-worn classics, even though they're all newly penned.   The soulful grip that he puts around June, a song of yearning and ache is quite irresistible.   He specialises in rambling yarns of relationships, like the easy gait of The Perfect Mark Of Cain, with its rural rootsy feel that will connect instantly with those into the Americana singer-songwriter genre.

She's A Mama Now is as gentle and moving as Waiting On A Flood is determined and rocking.   Each track has a purpose and integrity that makes one want to listen again.   Jeff Finlin is an American roots-rock act prepared and willing to make a UK connection.   He has recently completed his third tour and is deserving of our support.   Go out and buy Original Fin and make sure you catch him on his next UK trip.   Rating:  3.5 stars

Finlin's been around for about 20 years now and this is his third solo album.   An unusual CV for This Year's Dylan.   The picture is further complicated by an early diet of country and Tom Waits, plus back-up from bassist Tony Garnier, who's worked with Dylan, and guitarist Marc Ribot, who has a Tom Waits connection. 

But all of that would be meaningless without the right songs - and happily they're very good indeed.   Best is the train-rhythm strut of Waiting On A Flood, though everything is melodically strong and the lyrics never less than intriguing - Love and Happiness has Finlin describing himself as "born with an apple in my mouth, a chocolate saint in a fat man's house".   Out of the ordinary?   Certainly.    Rating:  4 stars

[ **** Excellent.  Definitely worth investigation. ]

With his nasal twang and strong original songs he undertakes a fascinating odyssey that has poetic license (The Perfect Mark of Cain), supple arrangements (18 Tons) and hidden depths (June). 

Rating:  Four stars

Gravity is a new alt.country label set up by BMG as its answer to Mercury's Lost Highway.   The imprint launches with two well-chosen and ready-made singer-songwriter albums bought in from US indies.  The Nashville-based Kimbrough plays guitar with Allison Moorer and Rodney Crowell, and his solo album contains 10 well-crafted songs in pleasing country-rock vein, with Lost Highway artist Kim Richey on backing vocals.

Finlin's LP is a beauty, from the bluesy 'Waiting on a Flood' to the bittersweet loveliness of  'The Perfect Mark of Cain' and, best of all, the gritty-but-lyrical 'She's a Mama Now'.   All sung in an arresting voice, not unlike a mid-seventies Dylan.

Hardly a newcomer, this is Finlin's third album, but it's his first to be made available here.  A real find. Rating:  4 stars.

In tracks such as The Perfect Mark of Cain and She's a Mama Now, Finlin also produces songs that the master might approve of, though with him you'd never know.   As such, Finlin is not so much a New Dylan as an old Dylan, and while this collection, with Mark Ribot's guitar sketching beautiful fills, is actually quite strong, one wonders where Finlin goes next.    Rating:  three stars

With an arresting voice that is at times reminiscent of mid-'70s Bob Dylan, he ranges effortlessly from the bluesy Waiting on a Flood  to the bittersweet loveliness of The Perfect Mark of Cain via the gritty-but-lyrical She's A Mama Now, which is the album's outstanding track. 

Finlin is hardly a newcomer, but he will be a major discovery for many.  Original Fin should finally introduce him to the wider audience that he richly deserves. 

Jeff himself is a pocket-sized Bob Dylan/Buddy Holly figure with a unique voice, relentless energy and a handful of memorable songs, nine of them being on this album.  From the opening 'Love and Happiness' you should be hooked by his strangulated Nashville twang and hot band that includes Marc Ribot, Larry Saltzman and Tony Garnier.

When Jeff tours the UK he'll probably be in the company of Pat Buchanan and his Idle Jets.  Don't miss them, it's a dynamic show - and pick up a copy of this delightful album (if this was Dylan's latest release everyone would be going crazy about it) while you're there.

One track made me cry.  Imagine that!  A grown man reduced to tears by the sound of the unknown.  I’d never heard of Jeff Finlin before, yet somehow he sounds strangely familiar. 

Bob Dylan, I think, is the link.  Mid-period, if my memory serves me well.  The time when Dylan was still heralded as the saviour of the ‘song ‘n’ truth’.  Something went wrong, middle-age took over and the pedestal lay vacant.

And guess what?  The pedestal has a new occupant.  A new mid-period Bob Dylan. The keeper of the song, the owner of the key.  Jeff Finlin is officially anointed the male singer/songwriter that it’s OK to like in this modern age of pap.

The Ohio born ex-member of the Marshall Crenshaw produced one album-wonder, The Thieves, has a sound enriched by a stellar cast of players - who have graced the back catalogue of musicians as revered as Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, Graham Parker and The Rolling Stones.

Jeff Finlin’s current album, Original Fin, was recorded in New York and sounds very across-the-Atlantic.  Lyrically, Jeff’s words read like a novel.  Crafted little stories of emotional depths and good-times depravation. 

The track in question, that made me blub, is ‘Weight Of The Flame’.  Not only is it a tear-jerker in structure and delivery, it is four minutes of art that crossed the generations.  My 17-year-old son said: “Tell that man I love him.”  Yes!  Jeff Finlin has that touchy-feely effect.

Elsewhere Original Fin is faultless.  Up-tempo numbers such as ‘Waiting On A Flood’ mix spiritually with slower takes like 'The Perfect Mark Of Cain’.  It’s not an album full of throw-away singles but a must-take journey with a beginning, middle and end.

Jeff Finlin is appearing @ The Greys, 105 Southover St. Brighton on Monday 26th February.

This album has a 1999 copyright sign on it, so maybe everyone missed it first time around.  Who cares, he's coming over and this is an album well worth giving a listen.  Finlin has an endearing Dylan-like nasal vocal sound which isn't enough Dylan to have you constantly drawing comparisons.    Saying that ('The Perfect Mark of Cain'), when you do, Finlin's lyrics and personality do shine through.   Andrew Morse is responsible for the production, that's pristine, great early rockabilly drum sounds (Jeff), clean slide guitar (Larry Saltzman, Richard McLaurin and Marc Ribot).   Other players are Tony Garnier (bowed bass), Dave Hofstra (bass), Joel Diamond (organ) and Ned Henry on violin.   Not all at once, you understand, these songs are thoughtfully and sympathetically brought together to make an album that's comfortable with itself.

He launches the CD with the ironic 'Love and Happiness' which sets a great mood with its slide guitar, lazy beat and Finlin's southern twang.   'June' sounds like a Dylan song you always wanted to hear, "she irons some creases in my vacant stare, leaves cold winter memories fastened with care".  He's a hell of storyteller.   In 'The Perfect Mark of Cain' he opens with "She walked the aisle in an eggshell blue, compromising white, while the purple thistles twisted, in the fading spring twilight".    I think it would be perfectly honest to say that there's nothing amiss here. 

Essentially it's an 'acoustic album' that augments a Hammond and some electric guitar, Finlin is comfortable in the studio as he is live, and the album has an easy flow about it.  If you like the Band, 'John Wesley Harding' Dylan or just a bloody good songwriter/musician/ performer, then you won't be disappointed in 'Original Fin'.

Expect Jeff to be around in February, meanwhile check him out at http://www.NBFNY.com

Musicians include Dylan's Tony Garnier, Parker's Joel Diamond and Tom Waits' Marc Ribot. 

Mojo
November 2000

Nevertheless, Finlin is more than this, because he unites the philosopher with the poet and these two with the musician.  With his fellow musicians - including Marc Ribot (Waits, Costello), Tony Garnier (Dylan), and Joel Diamond (Rolling Stones) – it’s like being in seventh heaven, one treasures every second of this unique, warm album - and is fully entranced.

Ein Drummer, so heisst es, ist nicht etwa Musiker, sondern nur mit Musikern befreundet.  Das stimmt auffallend oft, nur im Fall von Jeff Finlin ganz und gar nicht.   Gut, er hat zwar mal als Trommler angefangen, aber mit nunmehr drei Soloalben – “Original Fin” ist sein neuestes – straft er nicht nur all die blöden Drummer-Witze Lügen, sondern lässt als Multiinstrumentalist und Songwriter extraordinaire aufhorchen.   Seine detaillierten, trockenen Beobachtungen aus dem amerikanischen Alltagsleben pries man schon als denen von Kerouac und Twain ebenbürtig, und seine kratzige Stimme wurde häufig mit der von Graham Parker verglichen.

Alles wahr, aber Finlin ist mehr, denn er vereint den Philosophen mit dem Poeten und diese beiden mit dem beseelten Musiker.   Dass sich seine Mitstreiter – u. a. Marc Ribot (Waits, Costello), Tony Garnier (Dylan) und Joel Diamond (Rolling Stones) – bei den Aufnahmen wie im siebten Himmel gefühlt haben müssen, hört man dieser einzigartigen, warmen Platte in jeder Sekunde an – und das völlig gebannt.

In “The Perfect Mark Of Cain”, which is just astonishing in its metaphorical brilliance, Finlin spins a tale of a marriage grown cold, where the preacher had pronounced, prophetically at its start, their wedding bands to be “the perfect mark of Cain”.   The phrase comes from a Bible story about the first sibling rivalry and has received numerous literary treatments through the ages.   Knowing the full story will help you understand how deep this metaphor goes, but it is not a necessity, for the song is so well-written as to stand on its own. 

But this literate leaning in writing shouldn’t scare away those of you who are into melodies and production.   Most of the offerings here are accessible, if still highly original.  Finlin deals with modern issues in an honest and endearing manner in such tributes as the lovely “She’s A Mama Now” and laments the responsibilities of love in “The Weight of The Flame” and “Eighteen Tons”. 

One listen to “Love and Happiness” will have you singing the chorus over and over.   I deign to limit Finlin’s broad conceptual muse with comparisons, but his ability to craft a deep emotion out of mere words recall the songwriting skill of Dylan, the original arrangement and producer skills of Springsteen, and the heart of, well, Finlin. 

This is not a record for the lowest common denominator of the populace, but it’s a beautiful gift for the rest of us.   Can I give six stars?   How about my unflagging admiration for the indie – or major – label that picks this up and attempts to exact justice?

“We used to talk about hell while the dead birds fell/from the poison wires around the old church bell”  might not be the first lines you’d expect to hear in a song about a wife becoming a mother, but it’s classic Finlin.   Greeting card sentimentality gets tossed out with yesterday's Pampers.

Original Fin  obviously deals with original sin and all its repercussions, but Finlin suggests there might actually be a happy ending.   The album closes with the gentle piano ballad, “Moonlight Becomes The Dawn”, and speaks of a place ”where hopelessness, it turns to faith” and where “the bluebird sings the morning to the night.”