Categories : Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 3.5 / 5 Reviewer: Nathan Atnikov |
The Hold Steady was the perfect indie band. They told real, literate stories. Listening to their songs, you could be sure that Holly, Gideon and Charlemagne were friends of theirs, stumbling through drunk nights side by side, hiding drugs in their socks on their way to the Mississippi River. Just a few years later, Craig Finn and co. are still writing the same strain of legitimately great rock and roll, but it’s a little less believable. That’s because The Hold Steady isn’t just everyone’s favourite indie band anymore – they are legitimate rock stars. Finn, one of the best narrative songwriters working, seems removed from his subjects. Gideon isn’t their buddy, he’s their roadie. Holly and Charlemagne are just a couple more nameless groupies.
The Hold Steady promised Heaven is Whenever to be a more complex album musically, compared to Boys and Girls in America (2006) and Stay Positive (2008), both of which featured straight ahead anthem rock complimented by Finn’s narrative wizardry. On that note, they made good. ‘The Sweet Part of the City’ features some compelling slide guitar, while ‘Barely Breathing’ comes out of left field with a clarinet solo. They still hit the rockers hard, though, as ‘Hurricane J’ and ‘Rock Problems’ stick to the formula that’s propelled them to where they are.
But musicianship aside, this band lives and dies with Craig Finn. His storytelling has always been the key, and in that respect, Heaven is Whenever has its good points and bad points. It features some surprisingly hollow observations, such as, “goth girls love the vampire bats,” from ‘Our Whole Lives.’ But then there’s the stunning ‘The Weekenders,’ where Finn shows what he’s capable of: “the theme of this party’s the industrial age / and you came in dressed like a train wreck.”
Earlier this year keyboardist Franz Nicolay left the band, saying that The Hold Steady had taken their formula as far as it could go. He wasn’t completely right, but he was mostly right. Heaven is Whenever feels like a corrective step after the mostly boring Stay Positive, but it doesn’t nearly reach the heights of 2005′s genius Separation Sunday. At this point, The Hold Steady are what they are – and it’s hard to complain if what they are is still the best bar band in the world.
