SINGLE REVIEW: Shaun Finn - Love Is A Contact Sport

Shaun Finn is a talented singer-songwriter from Dublin, Ireland that has really settled into his Alternative hard rock with folk infused sound. Some say Finn is the Irish Foo Fighters with heavy inspirations from The Coronas. 

Finn’s Debut Ep “Late Replies” reached no.1 on the Singer-songwriter charts in 2021 and No.3 in the overall album charts, an impressive achievement indeed.

I really wanted to give this review a deep dive and pulled up as much info as possible, I found and listened to ThisIsThemusic Podcast Episode 108 with an interview with Shaun Finn and really got a feel for his personality, his processes into writing and recording music and more information on his new single Love Is AContact Sporta definite successful follow up from previous releases of ‘Rise’ and ‘ Times are Changing’.

Right off the bat you can hear those high energy punkish guitar chords that really resemble the Foo Fighters. The song is very upbeat Shauns vocals really shine through in romantic passion, I’d even draw some comparisons to Dave Ghrol’s subdued vocals. It's overall a fun-loving catchy song that left me humming it hours later. I find the lyrical content to be very sweet and I feel it is a very genuine account of his experiences, relatability is definitely successful in reaching his audience. The Bridge section, a favourite of mine,  is very punchy and builds heroically before the final ending chorus.

I have minor constructive critique in which the vocals are quite dry and high up in the mix, I found that within “Times are Changing” they sit just at the perfect point and tend to sound a little bit wetter which gives the vocals a satisfying ring to them. However, I understand that Finn is the mastermind behind all the writing and recording all independently with a little bit of studio support and that in itself a pretty impressive

My final comments, I find that Love Is A Contact Sportis something to be explored as Shaun Finn is really stepping up to his full potential and is making his mark on the music scene. I love his approach of “I want to write music I want to listen to” and he is constantly wanting to improve and that is very exciting to see in his music in the future, I hope to see him shoot up the chats once more.