The Hold Steady – Stay Positive Review
I found it weird but a lot of The Hold Steady’s albums have had major critical acclaim but I didn’t really here about them until this year. I guess when you start reading magazines and such you tend to be more on the look out.
The Hold Steady seem to be thrown around the term classic rock a whole lot. I hate that reference. Classic rock is considered (at least to me) of a genre that covers more of an era and says nothing about actual style. Classic rock can encompass many things or it doesn’t give an idea of their sound. Genre doesn’t matter in this case as The Hold Steady concentrate on some heavier riffs and a folk-style story telling.
I actually thought I was going to hate the album when hearing the first song off “Stay Positive”. It’s not that “Constructive Summer” is a poor track in any way, it just doesn’t scream “awesome band that stands out from the rest” if you get where I’m going. The song itself is above average and musically there’s a lot to like.
Much to my surprise the rest of the album is very good. The first song I didn’t appreciate as much until I got accustomed to the other songs and the whole album showed off The Hold Steady’s versatility. The first song I really liked was “Lord, I’m Discouraged” the song is self-explanatory. I tend to like those songs questioning our spiritual beliefs (see God? By The Dodos).
The next track that got my attention was “Yeah Sapphire”, I think I just enjoyed the intro the most, which is simple relative to the other tracks. There’s some nice progression on this song and it was a very easy song to get into.
The best part of the album, is that The Hold Steady seems to change from song to song where two tracks are like snowflakes (never alike). It makes for an easy album to go through. Sometimes you have a light guitar intro, sometimes a drum solo, sometimes just cutting straight to it and starting off with the heavy riffs. Very enjoyable I must say and not too difficult to like at all.
This is probably not the first time this has been mentioned but if there’s something to hate about The Hold Steady or on this album in general, it’s the lyrics. It’s mostly spoken word/uninspired style of music. Lyrically it’s of a high quality but vocally it doesn’t flow at times either. I wanted to throw out a comparison to the National but even they show off more emotion. For this reason the amount I’d like the Hold Steady will likely remain limited to an extent.
Some people don’t care as much as I do with the vocals and that’s perfectly fine if that is up your alley. The music is solid and there’s no arguing that they are at least talented and I can understand the high praise the Hold Steady are receiving.
Rating: 4.25/5
Constructive Summer by The Hold Steady
Yeah Sapphire by The Hold Steady
Buy this album from: Insound ++ CD Universe ++ Amazon
Tags: album
Thanks for posting some of the new Hold Steady tracks, I’m waiting impatiently to receive the cd in the mail!