Stay Positive

iTunes Review

The Hold Steady aren’t going soft on their fourth album, 2008’s Stay Positive, but they are becoming more musical. Where in the past the band was often satisfied slamming down power chords and tough riffage while “singer” Craig Finn ranted his booze-soaked teen anthems, they now expect Finn to sing a memorable melody while keyboardist Franz Nicolay and guitarist Tad Kubler layer the attack. “Constructive Summer” and the album’s first single “Sequestered in Memphis,” with its unexpected saxophone, make a formidable one-two punch, charged with energy and a barrage of sound that threatens to steamroll right over Finn. The title track lifts the melody from Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” (consciously?) to sell its power of positive thinking message. “Lord, I’m Discouraged” is the band’s first successful power ballad, played as if the wheels were coming off before they even started. The notes fall into place while Finn stumbles down the staircase and Kubler sends out a classic late-‘80s hair-metal styled guitar solo. By “Slapped Actress,” the album’s catchy closer, the band have subtly redefined their sound as AOR for the new millennium.