Categories : Featured Review, Music Reviews, Rock + Pop, Top Rated.
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Rating: 3.5/5 Reviewer: Nathan Atnikov |
After releasing the best rock albums of 2005 and 2006, expectations are suddenly high for a band whose members were, until recently, holding down second jobs. Stay Positive opens much the same way that ‘06’s Boys and Girls in America did – with two blistering bar-rock anthems. ‘Constructive Summer’ and ‘Sequestered in Memphis,’ are both full steam ahead rock ‘n’ roll, accompanied by Craig Finn’s bizarre and ingenious storytelling.
Once those two songs conclude, the album does something uncharacteristic of the Hold Steady. It slows down. The rest of the album is thoughtfully constructed, and Craig Finn is even occasionally caught carrying a tune. ‘One for the Cutters’ is built around a chamber-pop piano riff, while ‘Lord, I’m Discouraged,’ their best song to date, recalls ‘First Night’ from Boys and Girls but with a previously undisclosed tenderness.
Finn has retired recurring characters Charlemagne, Holly and Gideon, and with them the band moves into a new phase. Stay Positive is certainly the band’s most accomplished effort in songwriting, and is a necessary step for the band to take, but the reckless abandonment of previous albums will be missed.
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