- It’s fifteen years now since The Hold Steady first sent the music press into fits of delirium. Mixing cheesy classic rock riffs with a short-story writer’s sense of observation and turn of phrase; filling their songs with musical in-jokes; the band seemed made for music nerds and critics.
After releasing three much-loved albums in three years back then, the Hold Steady have inevitably slowed down a bit. Thrashing Thru The Passion is the band’s seventh album but first in five years. Mind you, songwriter Craig Finn remains prolific – already this year he released his third solo album. That record was a more subdued affair, but Thrashing Thru The Passion makes it clear from the start that it is aiming for the classic Hold Steady territory of epic riffs and quotable lines.
Opener Denver Haircut is as catchy as the band have ever been – the return of keyboardist Franz Nicolay is a welcome addition on that front, as is the horn section that is sprinkled through the album. It also contains some of Finn’s trademark witticisms, like “wherever he goes he orders the usual, he likes to see what they bring him”. It even throws in a Metallica pun and a joke about Greenday’s Time Of Your Life. In other words, it’s everything we love about The Hold Steady distilled into three minutes.
The album follows on from that in the same vein. Finn’s solo album seemed to grapple more with the specific context of being a middle aged person in 2019, this one aims for something more timeless and classic. It feels good to have The Hold Steady back and sounding so joyous. Besides piano ballad Blackout Sam, most songs are rocking out and lyrically having fun; even poking a bit of fun at themselves with the line “Hold Steady at the Comfort Inn, Mick Jagger’s at the Mandarin”.
The second half of the ten songs have all been previously released online over the last two years. So for fans they will be familiar material, but the album still fits together as a coherent whole, if not quite as much as the concept albums the band once churned out.
It’s not easy to be a rock band seven albums and fifteen years into your career. Thrashing Thru The Passion certainly isn’t pushing any new ground, but it does sound close to the band’s peak. With the formula well-set by now they are unlikely to bowl over the music world like those first few albums did. But no other bands can quite fill the same role as The Hold Steady, and Thrashing Thru The Passion is a welcome return from a group who are true believers in the power of rock’n’roll.
- Andy Paine.