Jeff Finlin “Myth of the Giver”

Independent, 2024

Poetic words on life, love and longing with echoes of Dylan.

Album cover artwork for Jeff Finlin "The Myth of the Giver"Jeff Finlin was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but now resides in Colorado. “Myth of the Giver” is his thirteenth album after 2022’s “Soul On The Line”. He says about the album that he is taking “an archetypical ride through life, love and longing as the ultimate gift, extolling its virtues in a musical novella of contrast and perception” He is elsewhere described as “a singular artist with the expressionist soul of a misplaced beat poet”. These give a clue to the mystical and poetic words on the record – it feels like poetry set to music. Often lyrics are poetic rather than straightforwardly descriptive and this can make them all the more vivid and powerful. However, here it is quite often difficult to get a grip on their meaning so you don’t have a mental picture of the situation in the song. This means that the phrases that Finlin uses aren’t generally as powerful and memorable as they might be.

In terms of the music here, Finlin’s low-key vocals are often set to electric guitar with a gentle groove. Steel guitar, keyboard and mandolin are added on various tracks to give them more colour. He has a Dylan-like drawl on some but not all of the tracks and there are echoes of Dave Alvin in his voice at times. Standouts include ‘Lightning Days’ and ‘The Cowgirl In Forever’ with their strong melodies in the chorus. ‘All Dolled Up Like Michigan’ has a brooding, menacing feel a bit like Drive-By Truckers’ ‘The Driver’ – this is slightly at odds with its final words, “in love we both fell”. ‘Unknowing’ has nice chugging guitar which initially reminds you of T Rex. Towards the end of the album ‘Lovers Day’ and ‘Taking The Blue’ swap electric for acoustic guitar and this softer approach works well on the two tracks. The best words are on ‘Lovers Day’ which is clearly a love song. Here “Take my hand/ And wander out till morning/ Feel your face/ Smiling without warning/ Olive skin/ breaking bread and conversation” conjures up brilliantly a more powerful image of his lover and the times that they spend together than plain description would.

You feel that Finlin is very creative – he painted the picture for the album cover, in addition to writing all the songs and playing most of the music. With art, some will appreciate your creation but others will not. He was, for example, our own Paul Russell’s number 3 americana artist of all time. This is an album for anyone who appreciates poetry and you can also imagine that Dylan fans would very much like Finlin’s work.

7/10
7/10

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