Life isn't fair, and you need not tell this to The Hold Steady. In any justice-esteeming society, 2006's critically adored "Boys and Girls in America," an album crammed with hook-filled sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll throwbacks, would have landed the band the fanatical arena, following its unofficial designation as the scraggly incarnation of The E Street Band. Instead, they got a few nods in year-end polls and a billing on last year's Lollapalooza poster that was only slightly more visible than The Fratellis.
With brooding ballads and song titles that include "Lord, I'm Discouraged" and "Sequestered in Memphis," it seems these guys are pretty fed up with the status quo. Discount the fragile optimism inherent in the new album's name, "Stay Positive," as the interlocking circles on the cover are far more telling. Maybe the boys and girls in America weren't listening.
And so you have to admire leader Craig Finn's bootstrapping mind-set. Though this collection lacks the go-for-broke spirit of previous outings, it reveals his group's dogged persistence is still intact.
The fist-pumping, call-and-respond opener, "Constructive Summer," fires a power-chord-propelled wake-up call to everyone still not paying attention. As the stadium-sized bombast dies into the bridge, Finn's determined drawl takes on pronounced resonance with the line, "Let this be my annual reminder/ that we can all be something bigger." It's a typical Hold Steady lyric: a gruffly uttered should-rhyme couplet - charming in its resolution, empowering despite itself.
Taken as a whole, the song is enough to make you want to pick up a guitar and learn "Born to Run."
But the moments of anthemic triumph are fewer in this go-round, reflecting the fatiguing attrition of moving in circles. The slower tracks, especially "Magazines" and "Slapped Actress," disguise a tacit admission: The massive nights, the hood rat friends and the unified scene aren't all they're cracked up to be.
Still, "Stay Positive" harbors a prevailing stubborn hope as distinctive to the band as any whoa-oh-oh chorus.
On the album's self-referential (because some things you gotta do yourself) title track, Finn admits, "I get a lot of double takes when I'm coming around the corners." Hey, it's a start.
