The Hold Steady

Summer has basically ended with me wasting it and not working all. My summer ended in July as I injured my knee and wasn’t really able to have fun for the last month. I’ll try… to go back to some concerts but standing around is still a bitch.

Filling in for Joe who needs a break before school starts, I’m holding onto the albums I review for tomorrow so enjoy this playlist. Most of them are recycled MP3s from other posts and rather short songs but it’s better then nothing right?

Constructive Summer by The Hold Steady – We’ve had a constructive summer for this blog didn’t we?
Stuck For The Summer by Two Hours Traffic – I was stuck at home for a good 5 weeks
It’s That Time Again by The Dodos
Brain Burner by No Age
Learnt My Lesson Well by Kaiser Chiefs
We’ll Never Sleep (God Knows We’ll Try) by Rilo Kiley
Insane Ft. Warrior Queen by The Bug
This Is Not A Test by She & Him
It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career by Belle and Sebastian -They’ll be saying that about me when I spend more time on this blog then on actual school
Holiday by Chaingang – hopefully you enjoyed your labor day!

Weekly Wrap- Up

I guess I plan to highlight all the week’s posts and some news around the blogosphere to add something different.

With a ton of new writers on board. I won’t get into any details as of yet but it’s more then a handful who will cover even more genres and music.

Reviews on Allan’s World of Music:
Forever In A Day – It’s So Well Rehearsed
The New Frontiers – Mending Review

The Hold Steady – Stay Positive Review
Shad – The Old Prince Review
Red Sparowes – Aphorisms EP Review
Sun Kil Moon – April Review

Special post:
Pineapple Express – Review and Playlist
Burial’s Identity Revealed
this. Concert Review

Around the blogosphere:
Kings of Leon have been a hot topic with their mp3 release of Sex On Fire. (haven’t listened personally)
The Faint has been a hot band on the blogosphere. Despite a below average score on P4k. I tried listening to their myspace, didn’t like it and moved on.
Bat For Lashes covered The Cure’s A Forest.

I was also shocked at 3:50AM when I heard a thud. Then the sky turned orange and off in the distance was a big ass explosion that looked like a bomb. Photo Junkie had pictures of it.

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