Stay Positive

The title in some ways says it all. This is a positive record about getting off your arse and making something of yourself. After scoring a crossover hit with their fourth album Boys and Girls in America, The Hold Steady have taken the opportunity to tell their new fans where they’re from and what they’re all about. Originating from the positive hardcore scene (before their current band singer Craig Finn and guitarist Tad Kubler served in post-punk band Lifter Puller), they are clearly still imbued with the same principles, though now their tunes are well and truly in the canon of the great American song and their music fits the fist pumping Springsteen mould.

Opening song ‘Constructive Summer’ epitomises this philosophy bursting to life with the excellent: “Me and my friends are like/the drums on "Lust for Life"/we pound it out on fourtops/our songs are sing-along songs”. The track is about small towns and getting hammered but with the life affirming message that “we’re gonna build something this summer”.

Craig Finn has said that the album is about growing old gracefully - an idea that every 35 year old rock and roller needs to consider - and in the call to arms title track he references the bands of his youth and calls for divides to be crossed and for scene leaders to “get big picture”. And it works too. Critics always gush praise on The Hold Steady, not just because there’s more to them than the average white rock band but because they have the built in capacity to make great tunes just like the ones Finn references from his youth and talks up in interviews - he has an long since expressed his undying love of The Replacements.

If there is a flaw in the album it’s that it lacks some of the urgency of its predecessor. On Boys and Girls. . . it seemed like they were playing for their lives. Perhaps now they’ve earned their dues they want to educate and build something. Nothing wrong with that I’m sure you’ll agree, but there’s a little less guitar and fewer of the dramatic moments like ‘First Night’ from the last album. Instead you get songs such as ‘One for the Cutters’, which recalls Dylan’s Hattie Carol in anthemic form, and ‘Slapped Actress’, which is a great song but takes a bit of research to fully understand.

What it might lack in immediacy it makes up for in depth. There’s loads here to listen to with recurring phrases and similar characters from the previous albums – for example, girls again go with whoever makes them the highest more than once and quite a few things happen on the prairie. The Hold Steady are just one of those bands that will grow until they secure a place in history just like the groups they so obviously love.