'Stay Positive' is the fourth studio album from The Hold Steady and follows their hugely popular 2006 release 'Girls And Boys In America'. Working once again with producer John Agnello (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr.) the album sees the band continue in the same direction their previous release took them, mixing classic bar-room style rock with Craig Finn's half spoken/half sung lyrical tales of drinking, partying and love. The single 'Sequestered In Memphis' is also included.

Jul 2008

'Stay Positive' is the fourth studio album from The Hold Steady and follows their hugely popular 2006 release 'Girls And Boys In America'. Working once again with producer John Agnello (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr.) the album sees the band continue in the same direction their previous release took them, mixing classic bar-room style rock with Craig Finn's half spoken/half sung lyrical tales of drinking, partying and love. The single 'Sequestered In Memphis' is also included.

"Still tinkling their Born to Run pianos and revving their E Street guitars on album number four, the Hold Steady remain the pot-bellied everymen to Bruce Springsteen's handsome everyman. But this time around, they have been rummaging in the music chest. Harpsichords, mandolins and theremins add new colours to songs about murder and memory that weave together details mundane and mysterious - such as Sequestered in Memphis, where two strangers go back to "some place where she cat-sits" before an ominous incident occurs. At times, the bloodlust in Craig Finn's growl gets too thirsty. But it's the album's closing lyric - "Man, we make our own movies" - that reveals the secret of this band's special powers." - The Guardian ****

The thinking man's bar band, the Hold Steady use a thundering classic-rock template--evoking everything from Boston to the Faces--as a base from which lead singer Craig Finn delivers his epic sung-spoken Springsteen-esque narratives of searching for faith and redemption at the bottom of an empty bottle. Refreshingly irony-free, the Hold Steady are one of the best reminders of rock & roll's classic spirit to have emerged in the early years of the new millennium.