Craig Finn, frontman of the Hold Steady, detailed his forthcoming solo album,I Need a New War, which will be released this Spring on Partisan Records. The album is the third in a trilogy of solo records that began with 2015sFaith in the Futureand continued with 2017sWe All The Want Same Things, which critics considered to be an artistic breakthrough for Finn.
I Need a New War, out April 26th,was produced by Finns longtime collaborator Josh Kaufman and recorded in upstate New York. The first taste of the album is the song Blankets, which is also the albums opening track. The song finds the 47-year-old singer in noir-story mode, describing a troubled relationship with plenty of winking self-references to his beloved hometown. When we got to the Twin Cities, he sings, I said, Man, I know some songs about this place.'
Thematically, this was the third group of songs that I had written about smaller moments, Finn said about the album. People trying to stay afloat in modern times, attempting to find connection, achieving tiny triumphs and frustrating let downs in their day to day lives.
Finn recently played the album in full at a January show at Brooklyns Murmrr Theatre. Performing with a full band, complete with backup singers and horns, the concert demonstrated expansive new sound textures the singer is experimenting with on his fourth solo record.
In the Hold Steady, the musics so big that I feel like the lyrics also have to be grand, Finn toldRolling Stone in 2015. Solo records allow me to be a little more vulnerable and maybe a little more persona, maybe a little more mundane. No one has to get shot.