Album Review: The Hold Steady Mark 20 Years of Positive Jams With ‘The Price of Progress’
Ever since former Lifter Puller members Craig Finn and Tad Kubler conceived the idea for it while watching The Last Waltz in 2003, The Hold Steady have been one of the most consistently great rock bands of the past two decades. Their combination of classic rock riffs and structures, old school DIY punk energy and Finn’s storytelling lyrics has always set them apart. At the same time, this approach has no frills with the end result being music that’s both genuine and emphatic. Their brand-new installment of this is their ninth album The Price of Progress, which is out today (March 31) via the band’s own label Positive Jams and the Nashville based entertainment company Thirty Tigers. Along with marking 20 years of existence for the band, the album excellently offers some sonic variety in various ways.
The new release marries the rawness of The Hold Steady’s early material with its more refined output of the past few years. Some songs have the guitars from Finn, Kubler and Steve Selvidge bringing serious amplification while others incorporate horns and synths. This is the band’s third album since multi-instrumentalist Franz Nicolay rejoined in 2016 and his presence is very noticeable on the keys. The rhythms and arrangements can’t go ignored either, both bassist Galen Polivka and drummer Bobby…
