For the most part, former Thieves singer Jeff Finlin suits the stereotype of a travelling country-rock troubadour well.   His music jangles along then flits off into spine-tingling slide guitar solos, while he sings with a rootsy, somewhat drawling enunciation.

His band are shaggy-haired, heads-down rockers (naturally; in a past life they were Eighties party rockers and Guns 'n' Roses favourites the Quireboys), while Finlin adopts the sunglasses-at-night style sported by only a very particular breed of guitar man.

He has a song entitled The Long Lonesome Death of the Travelin' Man, and in American Dream 109 he sings of "steaks on the grill" and "little houses by the freeway".   It's little surprise that fellow country-rock fan Cameron Crowe used Finlin's Sugar Blue on the soundtrack to his film Elizabethtown.

For all his fairly obvious homages to the Americana idyll, however, Finlin couches them in a truly evocative delivery.   Whether with his band or singing solo, each song in his repertoire mixes storytelling with simple imagery and a chorus that's memorable and just a bit romantic.

David Pollock
The Scotsman, 9 September 2006