Terrible Noise -- Craig Finn

If there is an On magazine official favorite songwriter (and if not, I am taking it upon myself to appoint one), it has to be Craig Finn, formerly of Lifter Puller, currently of The Hold Steady and now out on his own with his first solo album, "Clear Heart, Full Eyes," released last week.

And yes, that's an inverted "Friday Night Lights" catch phrase. I don't know from that show, but people think highly of it. Those of you familiar with it will have to tease out the thematic links yourselves.

It is an ostensibly positive- sounding title for a collection of songs that are, frankly, real downers. Bleak, even. This isn't unfamiliar territory for Finn, whose strongly narrative songs (there's a fan website you can visit to keep track of all his characters from song to song and album to album) are often about outsiders and hard-luck cases of all sorts. But, at least on Hold Steady records, those characters are put into a lot of party anthems; granted, they're anthems about parties held in the face of some looming disaster waiting just outside the doors.

On "Clear Heart," those parties are in the past, and the question of what to do next is on everyone's mind. Finn has dropped the record-long storylines of previous albums, so far as I can tell. I haven't noticed any recurring names or locations. This album is unified instead largely by its emotional tones, though I won't swear to the absence of some plot I might be missing. All of Finn's work to date rewards, and might be said to demand, careful listening and close textual examination.

That sounds like fun, right?

As to the songs as songs, instead of the vaguely punk rock sound of Lifter Puller or the aforementioned anthemic bar-band aesthetic that guides The Hold Steady, "Clear Heart" is solidly in country-influenced singer-songwriter territory, and I think it serves Finn's voice, both aurally and as a storyteller, pretty well. He might be described as more of a chanter than a singer, really, on most of his recorded output.

But here, with the sound dialed back to twangy steel guitars and understated organs, he comes across as relaxed, which fits these songs that are so frequently lamentations. Not that the music is so moody throughout. There are even some parts you could dance a pretty good two-step to, were you so inclined. But perhaps a slightly desperate one.

I haven't mentioned the religious themes, which are quite thick in places, if cryptic and mysterious. Is "New Friend Jesus" about some guy with that name, or the canonical article himself? Or both? There are all sorts of little curiosities like this, among stories of people who could use almost any kind of friend.

* Simon Sizer is the legal notice and obituary clerk at the Yakima Herald-Republic. He is constantly prattling on about music, so we gave him this column. It runs every two weeks.