CITY IS COMING TO ERASE IT ALL (WINTER GORSE VINYL)

These days - on the new, ninth Fink album - Greenall is operating within a lineage of authentic, quietly revolutionary artists from Englands verdant southwestern toe. Artists like Michael Chapman. In 1970, the elusive acoustic guitar wizard released an album called Fully Qualified Survivor. The cult-classic served as a lodestar for Greenall - along with bandmates Tim Thornton and Guy Whittaker - as he began jig sawing together The City Is Coming to Erase it All, the follow-up to 2024s Beauty In Your Wake. He even considered covering a song from it, but in the process, inadvertently stumbled into what became the albums opener. Wishing For Blue Sky circles a universal teenage ache: waiting for life to start. No point dying of patience goes the first lyric as crunching footsteps cue a resonant, open-tuned acoustic swaying into view. By 18, Greenall was fed up with waiting, so he left suburban Bristol and saw the world, sending postcards from the edge, waiting tables, squirreling away tips for the next flight. Thornton had similar experiences when the guitarist/drummer busked across Europe. This is nowstalgia more than nostalgia, though; theres a parallel between these 18-year-olds and Finks autumn-aged family men. Youre expected to be boring and settling down at this age, Thornton says. But weve still got this tremendous wanderlust. We want to go and discover and also achieve things. Its a nice life - home and family - but fuck, I cant wait to get back out there. City is a product of this hunger for discovery, and idolatry of the album as a form - like we had in 1974. Citys cover mirrors its interior, the first song is the greeting, the instrumental closer the conclusion. Its a story. Its a record for people who, like its creators, are curious. People who happily face a little cold for music, who light a crackling fire back home, who sit with these songs until theyre ready to chase after their own blue sky.