Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stay Positive, July 18, 2008
News of the new Hold Steady album raised a lot of questions. Could it possibly live up to the escalating expectations their first three albums produced? Will the familiar characters of the past be back? Can Craig Finn keep writing the wittiest lyrics in rock music? Will every review make a Springsteen comparison? The answer to all of these questions is yes.
Stay Positive was released in digital form last month and like it's predecessors gets off to a rocking start with "Constructive Summer" which revisits Boys and Girls in America's theme of partying with friends while tossing in a toast to "St. Joe Strummer" who "might have been our only decent teacher". "Sequestered in Memphis" keeps the rocking party going but throws some shadows in the lyrics. There are subpoenas and sequesters, and the lyrics seem to be the response to an interrogation. In Craig Finn's addled world you don't go back to her place when you leave the bar, you go to "someplace where she cat sits".
When a harpsicord leads off the third song "One for the Cutters" you start to realize you may not be in Minnesota anymore. Kids are being killed, suspects are on the run, and every townie is being paraded to the police station. What follows in the album are the consequences to the partying. Characters are older but not wiser, and aging but not gracefully. Holly (who like Gideon and Charlemagne are never named) may be in worse shape than where she was left in the song "First Night" from BAGIA. "Lord I'm Discouraged", a heartbreaking ballad with a monster guitar solo finds the singer pining away for her and praying "she don't die".
Even the title track "Stay Positive" warns "There's gonna time a time when the scene'll seem less sunny." and begins a great four song sequence that culminates with "Slapped Actress" which may be the best song The Hold Steady has ever released. The song, influenced by the John Cassavetes movie "Opening Night" sways back and forth between re-examining the events in previous albums "Don't tell them Ybor City almost killed us again" and exploring the relationship between the performer and the fans "Some nights, it's just entertainment and some other nights it's work".
If you are a Hold Steady fan "Stay Positive" has the comforting themes, name and song dropping, intertwined lyrics and explosive sound you are used to. If not "Stay Positive" may be the album that will make you go back to find out what happened before this, as BAGIA was for me. In any event it is The Hold Steady's most musically diverse album to date, with a storyline that can stand up to the brilliant "Separation Sunday", something even the most positive Hold Steady fan may be surprised by.
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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Album - Horribly over compressed, July 16, 2008
This excellent record deserves to be played loud. Unfortunately, it's been so aggressively mastered, that I haven't been able to turn it up without distorting.
I'll gladly pay twice if somebody can tell me that the vinyl was treated differently.
Musically, this is the best album of the year.
Sonically, the wrong mastering for what should be a loud, dynamic rock masterpiece.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
In the running for best of 2008..., July 25, 2008
I have to admit that I came pretty late to The Hold Steady party but better late than never. I picked up their 2006 release Boys and Girls in America about 6 months ago and quickly followed it up with Separation Sunday and Almost Killed Me. After fully immersing myself in those albums I was more than ready for this release. Stay Positive could be The Hold Steady's masterpiece, but somehow I think that album is still to come. What it is, however, is one of the finest albums in a year of fine albums.
In the rock press The Hold Steady is often referred to as a unique blending of The Replacements and Bruce Springsteen, but they'r much more than that. In the opening track "Constructive Summer" they mine the ground formerly occupied by another Minneapolis band, Husker Du and name drops Joe Strummer opining that "I think he might have been our only decent teacher". The song is similar to many of their earlier works except that the characters are older and a bit more damaged a world of dashed hopes and diminishing expectations. Craig Finn writes abotu these scenes as if he's not only lived them, but breathed them and drank them down. Never is this more in evidence than on the second track, and obvious single "Sequestered in Memphis" a rollicking account of a one night stand. If your not singing along by the second chorus of this one then this band is not for you.
Despite it's title Stay Positive is a fairly dark album in content. On Boys and Girls in America the characters were young hard partiers who still had their optimism. Now they're older and more beaten up by life. On "One for the Cutters" with it's murder mystery theme and harpsichord (!) tones this is in particular evidence. The beautiful "Lord I'm Discouraged" takes a similar tone and features a nuanced vocal by Finn far outside of his usual sing/speak style. The album's weakest cut, "Navy Sheets", references the synth tones of the Cars in a rather unfortunate manner but still features a brilliant lyric. Rounding out the album are standout cuts like the title track, "Joke about Jamaica" and the magnificent closing cut "Slapped Actress". The literate lyrics throughout and the inspired guitar of Tad Kubler tie them all together with a shiny bow on top.
The bottom line for any album review is should you buy this album? Well I have to admit The Hold Steady are not for everyone. If you're not a fan of unusual singing styles and lyrics about hard living, then this band is not for you. On the other hand if you love honest songs, with complexity, ingenuity, pop culture reference and a strong tip of the hat to great artists of the past pick up Stay Positive. You won't regret it.
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