The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America

Genre rock Publisher Vagrant Records External Links Official The Hold Steady Website Official Vagrant Records Website

Let me first say that despite the ever-widening age difference between Hold Steady honcho Craig Finn and the titular boys and girls whose lives he dissects in his songs, Finn is no voyeuristic Larry Clark figure. He doesn't layer prurience with a thin veil of social commentary to make you feel better about getting off, unlike some photographers-turned-directors that we know. Finn's been there, figuratively if not literally, as have we all. He's just reporting back from the past. And if that weren't made obvious by Finn's world-weary vocals (not quite singing, but we'll discuss that shortly), the double whammy of Tad Kubler's classic-rock riffs and Franz Nicolay's rueful piano drive it home. It's that time-traveling sound that draws comparisons between the HS and early Springsteen, but there's a lot more to the Hold Steady than that surface noise.

For one thing, Springsteen, despite this three-hour shows, never really had the patience to develop distinct characters in his songs. Craig Finn develops characters that last whole albums and then jump to new albums, like Skeezix in "Gasoline Alley". One of them, the hapless tweaker Charlemagne, has been hanging around since the days of Finn's previous band, Lifter Puller. He's still with Holly, the lapsed Christian he met on Separation Sunday, and he appears briefly here in the song "First Night." Holly's in the hospital by the time that song rolls around, burnt out on crystal meth and warning her equally tweaked friends to stay away from the "sequencer and beats boys" who "spit white noise" when they kiss.

"Catchy" is not the word for this song cycle. "Engrossed" or "riveting" maybe. But I have a problem with Craiggers' actually singing, or at least trying to sing, on this album. I like it better when he rants his way through a song like a Midwestern Mark E. Smith. Dude, just let Tad do the backing vocals. Singing is not for the wordsmiths. Besides, you're not gonna be singing along to Hold Steady songs anyway, just listening intently to these teenage symphonies of drug abuse and heartbreak, ears glued to the speaker like when you were thirteen and trying to get down all the words to that one song so you could understand what you were listening to.