As The Hold Steady’s frontman, bandleader Craig Finn is as much a party starter as he is a storyteller. But on his first solo album, 2012’s Clear Heart Full Eyes, he traded his band’s boisterous guitars for slower, bluesier tones. On its follow-up, Faith in the Future, his storytelling strikes the same somber chords as the stripped-down sonics. Finn’s trademark sad-sack characters aren’t stumbling around a house party this time; rather, they’re
frightened, lonesome and struggling to see the light. During the acoustic “Sarah, Calling from a Hotel,” Finn catches a surprise phone call, and he’s helpless on the line. “The last thing she said to me before she hung up the phone was, ‘Here he comes. Oh, god. I gotta go,’” he sings. Finn opens the buzzy, echoing first track “Maggie I’ve Been Searching for Our Son,” by admitting, “There’s a darkness in my body, and I think I might be ready,” to start looking. Faith’s 10 tracks don’t hold together as well as Clear Heart; Finn’s hooks are weaker and his arrangements are a bit scattershot. But when drinking alone, this’ll go down fine.