The Hold Steady – Heaven Is Whenever: 10 Year Anniversary Deluxe Edition 2LP

Description

**Red / Orange Marble Vinyl Edition

After the departure of keyboardistFranz Nicolay, it seemed almost inevitable thatthe Hold Steadywould return to the dollar pitcher fueled, bar-rock stomp ofAlmost Killed MeandSeparation Sunday. Instead, the freshly made quartet branched out in a slightly different direction for their fifth album,Heaven Is Whenever. Rather than writing another hard rocking novella, the album feels more like the soundtrack to a lonely Midwestern road trip, making it more of a road-weary version ofBoys and Girls in Americathan a re-creation of their earlier work. The album has a quality about it thats sweeping without being out and out uplifting, feeling more informed by the rigors of touring than the denizens of the Twin Cities and their lapsed Catholic revelations. While some of the characters are still alive and kicking on the album, the focus seems to be more on mood than continuity. The psychic girl and her boyfriend/accomplice from Chips Ahoy! reappear on The Weekenders, but now we find them more downtrodden asFinnsings There was a kid camped out by the coat check/She said the theme of this party is the industrial age/You came in dressed like a train wreck. Tying the songs together are the choruses, which share the same woah-oh-oh backing vocals, making The Weekenders feel like a downtempo reprise of the first installment of their story. Its not all tales of the down and out, though. We Can Get Together feels like a more romantic, less drug-fueled take on Hornets! Hornets!, where an enamored narrator hangs on the every word of his lady, but the slithering guitar riff is replaced by a shimmering ballad, turning a haggard bar crawl into a sweet slow dance. Make no mistake, the rock is still here, but its lessThin Lizzyand moreBruce Springsteen. Without the prominent keys of their last two albums, a lot of the heavy lifting is back on the shoulders of guitaristTad Kubler(whose twisting riff on The Smidge is one of his best in years). The big difference betweenHeaven Is Wheneverand the earlier albums is thatKublerseems ready to take on the challenge of creating that emotional weight that the organ and keys brought to the party, using the guitar to create an emotional landscape using a less is more approach rather than piling on snarling riffs. While fans expecting the second coming ofAlmost Killed Memight be disappointed,Heaven Is Whenevershows a band that just isnt willing to backslide into their old ways, instead opting to continue forward with a reverence for their past work that reminds us of whothe Hold Steadywere, all the while giving us a glimpse of who theyre going to be. -All Music Guide