I accept been loath to write near The Concur Steady, even though I think they are ane of the about significant bands working today, mostly because I fear that oft more is concealed than is revealed when mixing criticism with art. I also wouldn't want to forcefulness a religious, and more specifically, Cosmic paradigm on a band that is much too smart to be hijacked by such treatment. Third, nigh theological analysis of popular civilisation ends up drowning all its delicious irony in a sea of overwrought earnest moralizing and gratuitous name-dropping, and with that in mind, I have not wanted to suck the life out of The Hold Steady by chaining them to any particular academic calendar, as Sean Dempsey did for America. Yet, as most academics and journalists are parasites by nature, feeding off the living blood of real creativity, I plant the sanguinary odor of their new album, Stay Positive, released this week, too stiff to resist.The Christian narrative has found its way into many of lead singer/songwriter and Boston College graduate Craig Finn's lyrics, but his images of crucifixion and resurrection juxtaposed with stories of heavy drug use and young animalism do not suggest any easy commemoration of the saving power of the Gospel leading to moral perfection. Most of Finn'due south characters find themselves simultaneously "high as hell and born again." This is to say that choosing sin and choosing grace is not an either/or proposition in the theological world of The Agree Steady, just rather, Finn's protagonists usually find themselves simultaneously justified and sinful such that the stone and gyre resurrections recounted in his lyrics unremarkably feel more similar crucifixions making the memory of Saturday nighttime'due south decent into debauchery e'er much sweeter than Lord's day morning'due south Eucharist. This theme is most palpably present on The Hold Steady's 2nd anthology, Separation Sunday. It ends with the honest and anthemic "How A Resurrection Really Feels," which tells the story of Holly, who finds her way back to the church later on the "lovely" party scene turns "druggy and ugly and encarmine." Finn narrates her return singing, "The priest merely kinda laughed. / The deacon caught a draft. / She crashed into the Easter mass / with her pilus done upwards in broken glass. / She was limping left on broken heels. / When she said father can I tell your congregation / how a resurrection actually feels?"One might exist tempted to read this scene as the "rock lesser" experience preceding Holly'due south resurrection to wholeness, but this would be to miss the promise of the song'south title to nowadays human being resurrections as they actually are--disheveled, desperate, and stumbling attempts to stand in the face of a scene gone bad. The truth of the matter is that Holly wouldn't have come back if the scene had remained "lovely," which is why the refrain at the end of the song repeats, "Don't turn me on once again, / I'll probably only go and get myself all gone again." The message is that resurrection is tough stuff, and you don't exercise it unless you have to. This is the paradoxical tension that makes The Hold Steady, and Finn's vocal writing, and then compelling. Sunday forenoon does not feel improve than Saturday dark, but once Saturday nighttime is over Sunday morning is all you accept.
The Hold Steady's new disc has been hailed equally a more than mature effort, which finds Finn and company trying to "stay positive" as they go older. The songs on Stay Positive have as much to do with nostalgia for the bliss of youth as with aging gracefully. The opening song, "Effective Summer," celebrates the hope of a "lovely" party scene as Finn shouts, "We're going to build something this summer!" The promise for communal transcendence through chemically re-created "love and trust" has never been more than joyously proclaimed or more than apace eclipsed by the real consequences of the mob chorus's stated intentions to "get hammered," as Finn sings, "all my friends are dying or are already expressionless." With that, Sabbatum night begins its descent through run-ins with the law ("Sequestered in Memphis"), self-destructive behavior ("I for the Cutters"), gratuitous sex and violence ("Navy Sheets," "Yeah Sapphire"). This last vocal ends with Finn admitting, "I need someone to come and pick me up," and repeating, "I was a skeptic at first, but these miracles work."The centre-slice of the album comes on the heels of this turn to the "miraculous." In "Both Crosses," Finn again returns to church past narrating the experience of a girl who has seen enough. He sings, "She's known a couple boys that died / and two of them were crucified / and the terminal one had enlightened eyes / simply the offset guy he was Jesusa Christ. / Hey Judas, I know you made a grave mistake. / Hey Peter, you've been pretty sweet since Easter break." Maintaining the tension of the story, Finn suggests that his protagonist is equal parts betraying Judas and faithful Peter, and Finn remains conflicted as to which is the more compelling personality, as he ends the song meditatively repeating, "I've been thinking about both crosses." In true form, Finn remains unresolved when it comes to the promise of salvation via organized religion. He's not a skeptic but believing in miracles does not necessarily brand him a Christian. In the cease, the miracle is non Christ, for Finn, but it's the fact that in spite of all the aging idols of sexual activity, drugs, and religion, rock and roll has fabricated information technology possible for him to "stay positive."Equally the meditative "Both Crosses" fades, the halleluiah chorus of the title track kicks up and Finn delivers the real gospel message of Stay Positive. He sings, "There'due south gonna come up a fourth dimension when the scene'll seem less sunny. / It'll probably get druggy and the kids'll seem besides skinny. / In that location's gonna come a time when she's gonna have to get / with whoever's gonna get her the highest. / There'due south gonna come a fourth dimension when the true scene leaders / forget where they differ and get big picture / crusade the kids at their shows, they'll have kids of their own / the sing-a-long songs'll be our scriptures / nosotros gotta stay positive." For The Hold Steady, the play a trick on is to remain cheerful amidst the daily tragedy of failures to make good on our desire to transcend our own humanity. For Finn, this cheerfulness comes in the visceral music of the Dionysian festival that is rock and whorl, which hangs on that miraculous edge between skepticism and belief. The Hold Steady is non a Christian band, but it is a band concerned with crucifixions and resurrections. Craig Finn is no Gospel preacher, but he is "high as hell and built-in again." The band doesn't claim to offer conservancy, but, as Finn shouted from the phase at a concert I attended in Brooklyn last summertime, "In that location is so much joy in what [they] do!" And that is more than many of the most earnest believers can say.
Eric Bugyis teaches Religious Studies at the University of Washington Tacoma.
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