Film Review

09 January 2009 04:47 BST

Hold Steady: Stay Positive

Rough Trade, out July 14th.

In a nutshell…

Boss-influenced bar room rockers achieve greatness

What's it all about?

Brooklyn-based bar room kings the Hold Steady return with their fourth album in five years, a rollicking, staggeringly-accomplished work from a band nearing their 40s and still creating the impression that they're five smart guys who fancied playing some rock in their spare time and just happened to be the band America's spent a generation waiting for.

Produced by John Agnello and recorded at Water Music in Hoboken, NJ and Wild Arctic Studios in Queens, NY, with mixing at the Magic Shop in Soho in Manhattan, it's a continuation of the Springsteen-tinged tales of drinking, love and high school partying that made Boys & Girls in America one of the greatest albums of 2006.

Who's it by?

The Hold Steady - singer Craig Finn, guitarist Tad Kubler, bassist Galen Polivak, drummer Bobby Drake and moustachioed pianist Franz Nicolay - formed in 2002, inspired by watching Scorsese's The Last Waltz. Quickly breaking their self-imposed rules about not touring or recording, the five-piece bashed out three lyrical rock albums in three years, becoming the first rock band to grace the front page of the Village Voice in 15 years, winning Blender magazine's band of the year award in 2006 and receive pretty widespread genuflection from fans and critics alike for their stunning third effort Boys & Girls in America.

As Craig Finn explains: "A great American philosopher named D Boon once said 'Our band could be your life'. I think that is true. But 'Your Life could be Our Band' is also a true statement. I know this because we have lived it. These are our lives. These are your lives. This is our fourth record. Stay Positive."

As an example...

"Raise a toast to St Joe Strummer/I think he may have been our only decent teacher/Getting older makes it harder to remember/We are our only saviours." - Constructive Summer

"And she saw all the footage right before it got cut/And she saw all the bodies and she saw all the blood/She saw the angel put a sword in his side/And baby, that's how we got canonised." - Both Crosses

"There's gonna come a time when the true scene leaders forget where they differ and get the big picture/'Cos the kids at their shows will have kids of their own/These singalong songs will be our scriptures - we gotta stay positive." - Stay Positive

Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys

With increased musical scope, Finn frequently escaping his dry spoken word delivery to cry throaty affirmations and an ambitious lyrical concept of a double murder that loosely ties the album together, a significant crime would have been committed were this album ignored in the best rock category. Expect plaudits from NME and Q as well.

What the others say

"Right now, no band displays the ranting soul, haunted heart or diseased liver of the American rock myth with more truth and empathy than the Hold Steady. The Brooklyn band's fourth set — their most adventurous yet — shows their loser-outlaw storytelling and classic riff propulsion in full flower." - Will Hermes, Rolling Stone

"Musically, Stay Positive is easily the band's most focused work to date. Taking a post-punk, largely pop sound and peppering it with the Hold Steady's own tried-and-true Thin Lizzy-inspired stylings, Stay Positive brandishes a unique identity in the band's oeuvre. It is not only the Hold Steady's best record, but acts as a culmination of all of the ideas, stories, musical paths and character journeys that they've so pointedly led us down before." - Daniel Rivera, Slant

So is it any good?

Emphatically so. As surprising and heartening as Boys & Girls… was, the spectre of Bruce Springsteen and Husker Du hung heavy behind the album. But while the importance of The Boss for Finn and co is still clear, especially on the catchy, horn-driven lead single Sequestered in Memphis and fist-pumping effort Yeah Sapphire, this is an ambitious, vivid and deeply-involving album.

Opener Constructive Summer instantly maintains the Hold Steady's beloved beer-soaked vibe and we learn of the plans of the final summer of Holly, Gideon and Charlemagne, the trio of steadily aging friends eager for one last blowout.

But just as Boys & Girls… paid tribute to the Benzedrine-fuelled frenetic writing of Jack Kerouac, Finn reaches for equally dense storytelling and more than makes the grade, managing to paint a picture of a life in under three minutes on the Clash-esque One for the Cutters. The world-worn regret and collision of dark and light on Navy Sheets then reveals that heavier issues lay in store for Holly and friends before the slow-burning, magnificent Lord, I'm Discouraged.

A gospel-tinged, mournful feel hovers throughout as Holly's descent begins and the band's contribution to the I'm Not There soundtrack is revealed to have rubbed off on them, with Finn blurting his lines with Dylan-esque vigour.

Just as First Night pulled the entirety of Boys & Girls... together, the epic, rise-and-fall rigour of the song reveals that Finn wasn't lying when he claimed Stay Positive was an example of a band at their creative peak. Kubler's guitar work astonishes and while the denizens of East Village bar Hi-Fi might miss their one-time bartender, his flighty fingers are like a clarion call from the golden age of rock, with more than a little Duane Allman and Gary Rossington shining through.

Both Crosses is equally remarkable, merging from a pulsing, Doors-like opening, through slide guitar and swamp rock. Religious themes rear their heads again but in conjunction with the small-town deaths to which Holly is linked, and as Dinosaur Jr's J Mascis contributes on banjo, you can't help be pulled into her hallucinatory nightmare of culpability as Kubler's guitar wails in pain.

The title track is appropriately affirmative, a singalong splendour practically built for air guitar as Finn slips in references to past exploits, while Magazines details relationship woes and over-indulgence and No Quarter-like organ shimmers over umpteen Zeppelin references and sighing regret on Joke About Jamaica (the precursor to a Kubler solo that almost demands that you pull those cringeworthy air guitar faces as he merges fiery Jimmy Page-like licks with Peter Frampton's vibrating talkbox).

Finn claims the record is "about the attempt to age gracefully" but while there's a sense of maturing since the pill-popping, keg party exploits of Boys and Girls in America, and having to deal with growing responsibilities and the saddening realisation that the promise of youth isn't all it seems, this is still a record that fizzes with the vitality of a band half their age.

When a band like the Hold Steady exist, staying positive has never been easier.

9/10

Lewis Bazley

"Hi Lewis,

On behalf of Rough Trade / Beggars Digital, Vagrant and The Hold Steady, many thanks for plugging "Stay Positive" (street date 14th July and advance, digital release date 9th June) ... .. thanks, also, on behalf of the label and the band for not posting any pirate links to unreleased (studio) material and, if your readers want good quality, non-pirated, preview tracks, ?Sequestered in Memphis? is available for fans and bloggers to stream / link to / post etc on the band?s MySpace ... .. check-out http://www.myspace.com/theholdsteady and http://www.theholdsteady.com for details on ?Stay Positive? and the band?s 2008 shows ... .. for a limited period a play-through of ?Stay Positive? shall also be available on the band?s MySpace and on NME (http://www.nme.com), although these are for promotional purposes only and the artist and labels have kindly asked fans and bloggers not to host or link to pirate copies of the full album on-line ? for which many thanks in advance.

Thanks again for your plug and for the 9/10* review.

Regards,

WEB SHERIFF"

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