Your favourite indie bands come, your favourite indie bands go. Aside from the initial sighs and/or exclamatory cries of disappointment, after a few months – unless you bought and still occasionally wear one of their T-shirts – you can just about remember them because they have been replaced by your latest favourite indie bands.
Such is the way the mop flops, but if you're Paul Finn (former lead singer and songwriter of Irish band The Flaws, whose very fine 2007 debut album, Achieving Vagueness, was titled all too accurately) you never forget how to place one chord in front of, behind or beside the other. Finn's return to music is a welcome one, as his former band were one of a multitude of music acts that, with prevailing winds behind their sails, could have/should have.
Somefinn, however, is a group effort (musicians include Sanzkrit’s David Marron and Paul Markey, and Elephant’s Paul Carolan) and their debut album quietly shines from start to finish.
Its theme is, inevitably, 2020-oriented, with rhythms and melodies formed to create eight songs that directly reference a very weird year. As such, the sonic mood fluctuates from feverish (Contact, Starlet’s Dream) and placid (Nobodies Fool, Springtime) to disoriented (Blue Wave, A Just Refrain).
The end result is a really satisfying piece of work that is, says Finn, “part meditation on self-doubt and part proclamation of intent for the future”.
somefinn.bandcamp.com
