Extreme Listening Mode!

Few albums arrive as fully formed and perfect as The Hold Steady’s 2006 effort ‘Boys In Girls In America’. It really was, and remains, a staggering piece of work, A collection of almost perfect rock’n'roll songs which reminded you why you loved American music in the first place. They had been building towards such a plateau, issuing two terrific (if slightly less accessible) albums, 2004′s ‘Almost Killed Me’ and 2005′s ‘Separation Sunday’. But ‘Boys and Girls…’ was the realisation of that widescreen ambition. The characters who inhabit frontman Craig Finn’s world returned with stories about drugs, relationships, parties and a society darker than anything Travis Bickle came across. This is a band who are so skillful they can pull off a three-person narrative in ‘Chillout Tent’. A solid touring schedule got them further over and now the mainstream is positively salivating about this album. Can it possibly justify the hype?

What is apparent from the off is that this is an album which is intended to fill FM speakers and stadiums. Opener ‘Constructive Summer’ is redolent of Life’s Rich Pageant-era R.E.M. Lead-off single ‘Sequestered In Memphis’ is a taut, rocking blaster and brings us back into Finn’s world (‘in the barlight, she looked all right, in the day light, she looked desperate – but that’s okay, I was desperate too’) It’s similar to their previous work in its ambition and the obvious pride in Great American music – from Dylan to Springsteen to The Replacements to Tom Petty to the afore-mentioned Athens legends – shines through. And why not? There aren’t many bands channelling the spirit of classic Americana. It’s the kind of album The Killers tried and failed to make with ‘Sam’s Town’ and it succeeds where the Utah band failed because it simply isn’t wilful. The Hold Steady sound how The Hold Steady sound. There is no artifice, no gimmickry (well, save for the harpsichord on ‘One For The Cutters’ and it still works.) Having recognised America’s place in the world, The Hold Steady construct librettas so fully realised, so perfectly nuanced that is something more than simple rock’n'roll, and yet, that’s all it wants to be. It’s a beautiful indictment of America’s place in the Modern World, a post-fall desire for innocence yet a mordant understanding that what has gone has gone.

Lyrically, we are still down among the bad boys and the wretches. Killer Parties are still wreaking havoc on the beaten and bedraggled cast of Finn’s story. If you are a Hold Steady fan, it’s like welcoming back a gang of old friends (albeit ones you’d keep your distance from.) You’ll be as excited as I was with the line ‘Don’t tell them Ybor City almost killed us again’ from the frankly astonishing ‘Slapped Actress’. And if you are not, buy this album, and you will be. ‘Magazines’, a piano-driven three minutes of loveliness probably wins best line honours for ‘magazines and Daddy issues, I know you’re pretty pissed but I hope you still let me kiss you’. And that’s why they are a great band. They combine cynicism, hope, passion and detachment and manage to look back to a great past before still shaping a new sound for a new era. It’s not all great – ‘Navy Sheets’ is this albums ‘Some Kooks’ – and some may find the production a little shiny, especially if they preferred the grit of ‘Separation Sunday’ to the quicksilver ‘Boys and Girls….’ but those are minor quibbles.

Maybe too knowing, and most likely too dirty, to ever fill stadiums, The Hold Steady have simply added another terrific item into an already impressive catalogue. They may not be here to save rock’n'roll, but they’ve saved everyone who cherishes them by reminding us why we fell in love in the first place. And that is an incredible gift.

Filed under: New Albums Tagged: | constructive summer, Sequestered in memphis, Stay Positive, the Hold Steady