The Hold Steady

The Hold Steady seems like a particularly apt name for the lauded New York band following the release of its fifth full-length, Heaven is Whenever, earlier this year. After a grip of albums that cranked the populist, classic-rock bombast of Thin Lizzy and Boston through frontman Craig Finn's hyper-literate, spoken-sung...

By Jason Heller

July 1, 2010

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The Hold Steady seems like a particularly apt name for the lauded New York band following the release of its fifth full-length, Heaven is Whenever, earlier this year. After a grip of albums that cranked the populist, classic-rock bombast of Thin Lizzy and Boston through frontman Craig Finn's hyper-literate, spoken-sung sensibilities, the group has stabilized its sound lately. That's partly due to the departure of longtime keyboardist Franz Nicolay and partly due to the fact that Finn's scattershot yet somehow tightly controlled narratives have begun to spring more from the gut. He's even — God forbid — starting to sing a little more now, although the most striking thing about Heaven is the more direct, even introspective bent, an approach that quotes Hüsker Dü both in spirit and in name (in the song "We Can Get Together"). That doesn't mean, of course, that the Hold Steady has gotten any less explosive on stage, where it continues to earn its title as the reigning thinking person's bar band. Even if they've gotten a bit too big to play the bars.

Jason Heller is a staff writer at Westword. He's the author of the book Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music, and the Decade Sci-Fi Exploded (Melville House/Penguin Random House), and has contributed to the New Yorker, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and NPR.org. His work has won a Hugo Award and a Colorado Press Association Award.

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