Album Review: Finn Wolfhard, Fire From The Hip

Despite wrapping his journey as the star of Stranger Things, downtime is not an option for Finn Wolfhard. Less than a year after his debut album Happy Birthday, the actor and burgeoning-musician returns with his sophomore LP Fire From The Hip.

This latest outing finds Wolfhard fleshing out the indie-rock rawness of Happy Birthday while pushing simultaneously at the boundaries of his ambition. If his debut studio album was the rallying cry, then Fire From The Hip is the world widening around it.

From the opener ‘I’ll Let You Finish’ on, the album bursts with pummelling urgency. You can imagine ‘Common Side Effects’ sliding perfectly into a montage of a rebellious coming-of-age film. Things start to settle with ‘Lights Go Down’, a swaggering number with a cowboy twang that relives a series of shattered illusions: “Isn’t it tragic to see the sausage made?”

‘Follow’ is a stand-out track with its faux-motorik pulse and plain-sung Lou Reed affectation. In a brilliant one-two punch, ‘Tunnels’ follows with a rousing exploration of life and death, as Wolfhard remembers a conversation with a friend: “I said I was afraid of death/ You said remember before your birth”.

The album rarely diverges from its rock formula, save for a few acoustic highlights. The soft-strummed delicacy of ‘Trail’ and ‘Good Morning’ provide an impressive amount of breathing room against the wall of plugged-in tracks. Meanwhile, ‘The Climb’ and ‘Maggie’ blanket the album’s B-side in a folksy, stomp-clap-hey aura.

A propulsive opus that continues to build the 23-year-old singer’s world, the good news is that Fire From The Hip locates Finn Wolfhard among the great indie up-and-comers.

7/10