The Hold Steady - Stay Positive [Rough Trade album]

The Hold Steady became everyone’s favourite underdogs with breakthrough third album Boys and Girls in America – something that probably even surprised themselves. The Brooklynites’ blend of blue collar Springsteen-infused boisterous rock and Minneappolis-inspired lyrics about drinking and bars and girls and drinking...in bars...with girls didn’t seem to fit into the musical landscape of new rave, math rock and the rest. Nor did the band wear skinny jeans, have big hair...and they certainly weren’t young. But all this just makes the Hold Steady’s success all the more satisfying. Sounding like they were forged from the sticky, beer-stained tables of the dirtiest, smokiest underground bar this side of the Twin Cities, the five-piece proved that a collection of good rock songs can cut through any passing genre.

Following up the success of Boys and Girls in America was always going to be an intriguing challenge for The Hold Steady, and from the off it becomes apparent that they intend to take cue from their own name on the music front. Fans of the 2006 album, eagerly anticipating Stay Positive as a much-needed rock’n’roll fix, will be delighted by the surge of adrenalin of opening duo ‘Constructive Summer’ and come-back single ‘Sequestered in Memphis’. It’s hard to imagine a better re-introduction to the band than the gigantic shout-along choruses of these two anthems, with the former’s “our songs are sing-along songs” refrain laying down a telling marker. Setting pulses racing immediately, it’s clear that they haven’t forgotten what made a whole load of people fall in love with them.

Sadly, this exhilarating early pace is a little too much for the band to keep up with. The harpsichord of ‘One For The Cutters’ – while perhaps admirable for the fact it is something a bit different – is an unwanted addition to the song, and neither this nor the synth twiddling meets crunching guitars and dirty lyrics of ‘Navy Sheets’ really gel as songs. Elsewhere, the melodrama and religious allegory (recurring Christian imagery is noticeable throughout the album) of the epic ‘Two Crosses’ is a little overblown to take seriously – especially the jarring phrase “Baby let’s transverberate”.

In between, though, there are some great moments. ‘Lord I’m Discouraged’ is a morose ballad to rank alongside last album’s ‘First Night’, with a typical Craig Finn chorus telling of “excuses and half truths and fortified wine”, and even featuring a Slash circa-Use Your Illusion-style guitar solo guaranteed to get the air guitar fingers twitching. Both ‘Yeah Sapphire’ and ‘Magazines’ are pleasurable reimaginings of other beer-in-hand Hold Steady songs, with some sparkling bittersweet couplets: “One boy calls while the other texts, she’s got boys on board and boys on deck / Second dates and lipstick tissues, it all gets pretty heavy, girl I hope you don’t let it crush you”.

Something that certainly remains in delightful evidence throughout the album is Finn’s propensity for razor-sharp observations. The bespectacled frontman and songwriter still manages to work up some magical phraseology, with lines that are guaranteed to remind you of a night out you once had or a girl you once met, a nostalgic smile firmly planted on your face. The subject matter remains the same as ever, from barfly girls (“In bar light she looked alright, in daylight she looked desperate” – ‘Sequestered in Memphis’) to big drinking nights (“Me and my friends are like ‘double whiskey, coke, no ice’ / We drink along in double time; might drink too much, but we feel fine” - ‘Constructive Summer’), but there is a slightly resigned air of ageing rockers that pervades throughout, making it a more contemplative album than the balls-out Boys and Girls in America.

Title track ‘Stay Positive’ is typical of this more thoughtful approach. A sharp burst of vintage Hold Steady – all cutting lyrics and triumphant backing vocals – it serves as something of a premature requiem for the band, describing the pros and cons of their sudden fame and foreseeing its inevitable end when “the kids at the shows will have kids of their own, the sing-along songs will be our scriptures”. The overall message, though, is indicative of what makes The Hold Steady so appealing – simply “We gotta stay positive”.

Stay Positive is big, it’s brash, it’s unmistakeably The Hold Steady. It’s an entertaining listen with some real treats that, some beefier production and a few more instruments aside, complements but never rises above its predecessor. However, while not surpassing Boys and Girls in America, they still sound like the best bar-room band this side of the Mississippi river and provide the perfect soundtrack to a late night Jack Daniels session. It’s also quite likely to be the only album you’ll hear this year containing the words “sequestered” and “transverberate”. If you’re a fan, there’s more than enough in Stay Positive to keep you content, but if you didn’t like them before, you certainly won’t now.

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First published on rockfeedback.com. See it here.

Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies [Rough Trade album]

‘Rubies’ is the seventh studio album from Dan Bejar, AKA Destroyer, the sometime guitarist of Canadian ‘supergroup’ New Pornographers. Not specifically a brand new release, ‘Destroyer’s Rubies’ came out in America some 17 months ago on the fantastic Merge records. Its official UK release on Rough Trade gives a timely opportunity to re-examine this startling piece of work afresh. While not necessarily Bejar’s most ambitious work it is perhaps his most fully realised, combining his trademark poetics with sweeping pop songs that almost defy categorisation.

In fact, all you really need to know about this album is contained within the eponymous nine and a half minute opus that kicks off the album. ‘Rubies’ the song is essentially an epic poem set to a soundtrack that falls somewhere between lo-fi folk rock and laid back lounge pop. The dense conversational lyrics that open with the forceful statement: “Cast myself towards infinity / Trust me, I had my reasons”, twist and turn alongside a meandering guitar line, developing into a chorus of soothing “la la la la”s. Fitting both succinct couplets like “Blessed doctor, do your worst / Cut me open, remove this thirst” and seemingly awkward run on lines like “Don’t worry about her / She’s been known to appreciate the elegance of an empty room” seamlessly into the flow of his tale, Bejar proves that this kind of cerebral approach can function perfectly well as accessible, even ‘pop’, music.

Much of the album follows this formula, and this is no bad thing for it is both an affecting and effective one. It is Destroyer’s lyrics that tend to take many of the plaudits and much of the attention and this album is no different, for Bejar is a true poet and there are gems throughout. Mixing elements of Dylan’s imagery, Cohen’s overt but eloquent masculinity (almost all the songs are directed at, or discuss, women) and Lou Reed’s dark wit, these tales are an indulgent treat for those who like their songs full of allegory, wordplay and more simply, interest.

If there is a criticism of ‘Rubies’, it is that after nearly an hour of it, the album can become musically a little repetitive. Several of the songs end up with similar, generic “la la la” vocals, to the point that some of them are difficult to distinguish from each other. As a result of this, Destroyer’s music can sometimes be viewed, perhaps justifiably, as simply a vehicle for Bejar’s song-poems. However, for the most part Bejar’s individual style provides perfect accompaniment to his lyrics, and it is through the delicate aural touches of these deeply layered and expertly arranged epics that the quality of the wordplay is allowed to shine through. Despite the convoluted lyrics and the distinctive voice, ‘Rubies’ remains an extremely accessible album.

The finer moments on ‘Rubies’ are numerous. ‘European Oils’ is a gentle piano-led number that boasts some great use of the tremolo and builds to a fantastic, if short-lived, fuzzy guitar solo, and some typically obtuse but intriguing lyrics: “When I’m at war I insist on slaughter and getting it on with the hangman’s daughter. / She needs release. / She needs to feel at peace with her father, the fucking maniac…”. This, along with ‘Painter In Your Pocket’, is where Bejar gets closest to Leonard Cohen with his pointedly artistic treatment of words, the latter including the perfect: “I didn’t stand a chance, I couldn’t stand at all”. Though similar, both ‘Looters’ Follies’ and ‘A Dangerous Woman Up To A Point’ are individual joys with more lines of pure poetry such as the alliterative “Girls like gazelles graze, / boys wearing bells blaze new trails in sound” (‘Looters’ Follies’). Later in the piece, ‘Priest’s Knees’ and ‘Watercolours In The Ocean’ are pure pop songs that belie the density of what is held within them.

‘Destroyer’s Rubies’ is the sound of a half-mad drunkard soaked in bourbon, sitting at the piano in the corner of some dingy Vancouver bar, rambling verses tinged with brilliance and invoking the power of some hellish lounge band. Whatever you think of Bejar’s voice or his dense, elaborate lyrics and wordy approach to song writing, it is an album that, despite the length and meandering nature of many of the songs, remains generally captivating throughout. The perfect antidote to modern watered-down singer songwriters, Destroyer’s music is interesting, intellectual, intense and delivered with the shameless integrity of a true master. Quite simply this is the work of an artist.

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First published on rockfeedback.com. See it here.