Album review: Finn Wolfhard – Fire From The Hip

On last year’s solo debut Happy Birthday, Finn Wolfhard peeled back the outermost layer of his identity as the guy from Stranger Things and introduced a more understated side of himself. We already knew he was a bona fide music nerd, but he put it into action, jamming and creating with the purest of intentions. There was an earnest, bedroom music-like quality to his debut album, but on the follow-up, he’s gone more widescreen, as if writing and performing for the stage rather than just four walls.

There are more layers and textures to Fire From The Hip – see the lilt of the fiddle and the wobble of an organ in the background of Lights Go Down, a swaying, swinging ‘60s time capsule of a song. Even some of the simpler, more guitar-driven songs have expanded in scope, from the sun-drenched Follow – made for blaring from a convertible with the top down – and breezy rock‘n’roll of lead single I’ll Let You Finish. As much as Finn is expanding and maturing his operation, the strongest song here is one of the leanest in the form of Crater, a light-footed mid-album highlight driven by a clipped, sharp riff and chunky percussion that’s a simple yet satisfying pairing.

Fire From The Hip’s track list is bulkier than Happy Birthday’s focused nine-track affair, but amid a smorgasbord of new ideas are a few that don’t quite hit the mark. Some of the thinner, more acoustic numbers such as Trail and The Climb (with the humorous post-script of Not That One to distinguish it from the Miley Cyrus song) feel watery and float by without leaving much of a mark (though the jaunty folksiness of Maggie is a better interpretation of this sound). Though it suffers a little from a loss of concision, this remains a formidable and individual body of work affirming Finn’s knowledge of himself, his taste and his desire to make something entirely his own.

Verdict: 3/5

For fans of: Florence Road, Eels, Alex G

Fire From The Hip is released on July 10 via AWAL.

Read this next:

• Finn Wolfhard: “The most rewarding thing is making music that you want to listen to, or that your friends want to listen to”
• Finn Wolfhard: “I just like writing songs and making music accessible. I’m not trying to take over the world”
  
• “It was a heavy burden keeping my mouth shut about Stranger Things”: 13 Questions with Jamie Campbell Bower