Longtime indie folk musician Fink has poured his heart into his music yet again with the arrival of his eagerly anticipated sixth album, Hard Believer. Fin Greenall, the main man behind the music hails from Bristol, England. He is a singer, songwriter, producer and DJ who has been putting out moving music since the early ‘90s. While his first album, Fresh Produce, was an electronic work heavily focused in his DJing, his portfolio from 2006 on features mellow alternative material that touches a listener like nothing I’ve ever heard before. Fink’s latest album, Hard Believer, was released on July 14, 2014.
After becoming tired of the electronic genre, Greenall moved onto the unique alternative sound for which his fans adore him with the help of buddies Guy Whittaker and Tim Thorton.
Hard Believer has loads of Fink’s characteristic mellow guitar thrumming mixed with powerful musical highs and lows. The soulful melodies combined with lyrics weighed with far greater substance than one might find on the Billboard 100 all make for a pleasant and thought provoking listening experience. The music is anything but overdone; it’s raw, fresh and biting in such a way that the songs have the momentum to affect a listener at his very core.
Greenall’s voice is soothing and hypnotic. The urban feel that encapsulates all of Fink’s work is certainly present in Hard Believer. Every track on the album is wrought with emotion and pure musical prowess. Each song gives its listener a little window into Fink’s life filled with the trials and tribulations of a complicated relationship. Though the acoustic nature of the album may be soothing, the lyrics have the potential to stir up significant emotion in anyone who really focuses on them.
While all of the songs are wonderful to listen to (trust me, I’ve had the album on repeat for weeks!), there is definitely a single standout track. “Shakespeare” is an honest foray into the world of a failed first love with all of the sweeping musical force that makes Fink’s music so disarming. Other stellar tracks are “Looking Too Closely” and “Keep Falling.”
You can listen to “Shakespeare” here:
Overall, the album does what all good music should do: bring about some kind of change of heart in the listener. Simply put, it’s just so good that you’ll want to listen over and over again.