Finn Wolfhard - Fire From The Hip

Finn Wolfhard is hardly a stranger to the stage - though he’s best known for acting roles in Stranger Things, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, It and more, the Canadian multi-hyphenate played in bands throughout his teenagehood, and released his solo full-length - ‘Happy Birthday’ - just last year. This rapid follow-up, then, lives up to its title; ‘Fire From The Hip’ is an instinct-led, pleasingly unpolished record whose primary purpose isn’t to perfect the ‘90s-indebted sound Finn offered on his debut, but to help process the perennial minefield of young adult life.

Musically, it casts its net wider than its predecessor, swapping slacker-rock for Stones-esque rock’n’roll (‘I’ll Let You Finish’; ‘Crater’), Wilco-like alt-country (see ‘Lights Go Down’’s gentle two-step twang, or ‘Nice To Meet You Again’’s breezy saloon bar piano), and even ‘80s new wave (‘Follow’ in particular hints at this intriguing sonic offshoot). There’s a pleasing looseness to proceedings that lends itself to the LP’s scattershot lyrical invocations, too: Kanye West’s interruption of Taylor Swift’s 2009 VMAs speech (‘I’ll Let You Finish’) sits alongside the moment George W Bush was informed of the 9/11 attacks (‘Maggie’), together forming a backdrop of historic pop culture against which Finn examines coming-of-age anxieties - disillusionment, stagnation, loneliness - with a candid lack of conclusions. Full of frustration and heart, fear and hope, it’s an apt encapsulation of his current life stage (and a reminder that none among us, even movie stars, are immune to growing pains).