The Hold Steady - Stay Positive

I have had a few days to get my ears around the new album and it is one that should be added to your collection.

Track by Track

1. Constructive Summer - A piano tinged Rocker that gets things off to a cracking start. It also features the great couplet of 'raise a toast to saint joe strummer / I think he might of been our only decent teacher'

2. Sequestered in Memphis - This album's 'Stuck Between Stations'. Hear that Bruce, hear those HORNS, and just tell me those hand claps are not aimed at the live shows! This is a cracking track, posibibly he album's best.

3. One for the Cutters - I was not really sold on this one the first few listens, but it has grown on me more than any other track. It's a song about a murder and a rich girl that partied with townies: 'when one towney falls in the forest does anyone hear it'. Going to end up a one of the best tracks the band have ever writen.

4. Navy Sheets - Another song that was not grabbing me, and still isn't. Has a bit of a feeder fell to it.

5. Lord, I'm discouraged - Already being called their 'November Rain' (that's Guns n Roses). Not sure it reminds me of that, but it does pick at another musical memory that I can not recall. Nice guitar solo.

6. Yeah Sapphire - Can see this being a popular one, but it seems to one of the blander tunes to me.

7. Both Crosses - Shimmering acoustic number with some great religious lyrics. It is hard to avoid the feeling that it is about to break iinto Bon Jovi's 'Wanted Dead or Alive' though

8. Stay Positive - Another classic sing-a-long. You just know you'll have a big smile at the shows singing 'woah oh oh' in this one, and it also has another great couplet: 'and the kids at the shows will have kids of their own ' and the sing-a-long songs will be our scriptures'. It is short, sweet, and joyful.

9. Magazines - This is a bit THS by numbers, but does have some more brass to lift it.

10. Joke about Jamaica - The use of a bit of vocodar (more Scorpions than Bon Jovi) aside, I like the feel of this track.

11. Slapped Actress - THS finish with a Weezer impersonation. Seriously, the guitar sound here is just so Weezer. It is a cracking track though and one I could see them ending shows with, especially as it ends with a fine chorus of 'woahs'.


I'm still stopping short of a five star review, but it isn't a long way off. The production is the best they have had, and musically and lyrically there is some progression. I can not wait to hear some of this live. Will it be the album that really breaks them here or in the US? Release Slapped Actress as a single and Maybe ...