You cannot imagine how excited I was to get some kind of message – via the Innerwebs or some otherworldly means – that Jeff Finlin, “Fin” as he’s known locally in Fort Collins, put out a new album. I mean, I was so excited my heart jumped. I immediately dived into the entire album and haven’t stopped listening since.
You can’t find this album on SPOTIFY – yet. The published release date is June 24. HOWEVER – the album was released on May 19 via Continental Record Services out of the Netherlands on Bandcamp.
Produced by Jeff Finlin.
Recorded By Darren Raddach at Stout Studios, Fort Collins, CO.
Jeff Finlin – Drums, electric and acoustic guitars, vocals, percussion, piano
Taylor Tessler – Bass
Joe V. Mcmahan – Electric guitars
Eben Grace – Electric guitars
Eric Straumanis – Electric guitars
Brian Keller – Horns, accordion
Jeff Finlin’s legacy goes back decades. In my case it’s two decades since I first heard his music. Ever since then I have anxiously and quietly pleaded, cajoled and otherwise stamped my goat hoofs for something new.
After all, for as prolific as Jeff as been in his career – 13 critically acclaimed records – I honestly thought another album would never come my way. Silly me; Jeff has basically put out an album every few years. The last, The Guru in the Girl (2017), was a measly five years ago – an eternity it seems in Jeff’s catalogue.
Soul On the Line doesn’t move far from Jeff’s established Americana trad folk-rock style that travels nicely in the car with the likes of John Hiatt, Levon Helm or Bob Dylan. A literary mastermind, Jeff’s songs have taken us on an journey of life filled with vivid imagery. In the lead single, “…we walk the line, years repeating all our tears and time. Compromise our patron saint …hangin’ out with our Soul On the Line.”
Throughout the album, Jeff touches on issues that as he’s said are about “…these extreme and harrowing times we currently live in. Everything about our existence seems to be hanging in the balance.”
In What Went Wrong he ponders, “We all get tired of waiting, waiting on ourselves, so then we go and settle, set our feet in something else and then wonder why we can’t feel nothing here at all; and we’re stuck here on the telephone …wondering what went wrong.”
The songs on this album are not about the hope for the future. Jeff’s reflections and voice are those of an aged muse, tired and worn out from the battering waves of the very life that has inspired so many of his greatest stories in song and verse.
Jeff’s Northern Colorado friends and worldwide fans will love and adore and cherish this album as yet another intimate chapter in our friend’s collection. I’d suggest first timers visit earlier albums like Epinonymous, his highly acclaimed fourth album, before diving into this one.
Chris K's Colorado Playlist 