With Finlay plodding about on the London scene for yonks, this is their debut Long Player and, well, hmm.

Pavement.

Oh so very, very Pavement.

ALMOST as Pavement as fellow London-based indie blokes Garlic. But not quite. Garlic’s album was horribly underrated, I reckon, but live they kinda suck a bit. Finlay’s album sucks a bit but they’re very good live. Go figure.

This ain’t a competition, however, so let’s move on.

You’ve got bands like this lot who so clearly want to write a proper pop song but at the same time fuck it up so it’s not quite as easily-accessible as it could be. Fair dos. Urusei Yatsura used to do this. And Johnny Greenwood from that Oxford band did it on ‘Creep’ with his crunchy guitar parts. Fat lot of use that did. But ignore me, I’m probably talking shite.

Finlay can be a great live band. Their guitarist seemingly has spasms onstage. They have some good songs but overall, ‘I Dreams And Visions’ is just too damn dull. If you like your Pavement-meets-Built to Spill-meets-Grandaddy type music then this could be for you, but why bother when there’s a new Grandaddy album out anyway?

It tries, but ultimately it’s a wholly unmemorable affair. There are plenty of people out there who like their pop loose, lo-fi, and off-kilter. If you are one of those people, then you could maybe find room for this in your collection. I guess I would’ve bought this in 1996…