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Soundbites: The Hold Steady

Nick Rudman
Published: Tuesday, October 10, 2006

The Hold Steady “Boys and Girls in America” VAGRANT RECORDS (Out of 5)

When The Hold Steady played at UCLA last year, frontman Craig Finn took advantage of the university setting to remind the crowd of his college major – English. He then proceeded to show that his studies had not gone to waste as he led the smartest barroom rock band in the country through one literary banger after another. The set was mostly comprised of songs from “Separation Sunday,” last year’s epic story of rock ’n’ roll redemption that was notable as much for its quirky use of biblical allusions as it was for its crushing guitar solos. On “Boys and Girls in America,” The Hold Steady’s new album, Finn eschews a sweeping narrative and recurring characters in order to focus more on a general theme: specifically, the thrills, confusion, sadness and frequent intoxication of young lovers in the U.S. Without sacrificing the band’s trademark big sound, Finn takes listeners to the out-of-the-way locales that are the breeding ground for potential breeders – for example, the “chillout tent” of the song of the same name, where a brief but profound connection occurs between two teenagers who took too many drugs at a concert. And although his stories are of a smaller scale than in his previous work, Finn is as evocative a lyricist as ever (take this excerpt from “Massive Nights”: “The dance floor was crowded / The bathrooms were worse / We kissed in your car and we drank from your purse.”) “Boys and Girls in America” is meant to tug at the heartstrings at least a little bit. In order to accomplish this musically, the band includes more dramatic pauses and more reflective piano melodies than on “Separation Sunday,” and Finn, who on past albums had a tendency to recite his verses, does more actual singing. But this is not to say that The Hold Steady has lost its signature tautness and presence. On the contrary, “Boys and Girls in America” absolutely brims with confidence, precision and, above all, soul. Take, for example, the end of the album opener “Stuck Between Stations,” where from near silence a lone piano searches out a crescendo of huge guitar chords, with Finn’s raw voice fitting perfectly into the carefully constructed din. One need look no further than the song “Hot Soft Light” to see why The Hold Steady deserves to stand alone – more fun than Springsteen, smarter than any classic rock band and better than anyone at telling stories. Over fat guitar chords filled in by insistent piano lines, Finn sings “It started recreational / It ended kinda medical / It came on hot and soft and then it tightened up its tentacles.” He’s talking about a dependence that could just as easily be on another person as on a drug and set as he is against a musical backdrop so soulful and earnest, there’s no reason not to believe him either way.