Boys and Girls in America isn't the crank it up, windows down rocker it wants you to think it is. It's more complicated, less comfortable - and better - than that. Which makes The Hold Steady's newest outing a great indie rock dilemma - an amazing LP without an immediate audience. Too much regret and reflection for the kids in need of brains-off rock to score their next weekend binge, and too much... well, just too much for the literati indies or dad-rock set. Personally the whole thing makes me feel a little beat up and queasy. But it's hard not to like.
Every song is about drinking, drugs, drinking, being drunk, doing drugs, drinking, drinking, being on drugs, and drinking. At least that's the first thing you'll hear. Beneath the floor's considerable layer of spilt beer and cigarette butts sits the album's rock-solid foundation - difficult relationships rendered all the more so under the influence. And The Great American Rock Song. It's well documented ground covered by The Stones, Melloncamp, Violent Femmes and every other artist or band who loves the medium as much as the message, and this is a worthy contribution.
Musically the album plays like Thunder Road era Springsteen with plenty of power cords, sustained high-reaching anthemic gestures, working class vocals cut ragged by ambition, beer and smoke, and of course more than a little piano just in case you forgot that this is supposed to sound like Thunder Road era Springsteen. Think The National as the loudest college cover band ever. And it works. The production is immediate, big and honest. Guitars, percussion and vocals create a standing wall up front but allow enough room for organ, bass, hand-claps and other noises to elbow in throughout, adding depth and at times humor to the mix. In all the excitement there are a few missed notes and sweat stains which filter in and out creating an exciting hum in the background. Generally the pace is quick and driven making it likely that you'll spill the contents of your raised plastic cup all over the dude in front of you while rocking the devil's horns and bouncing up and down, but he's on something that prevents him from reacting harshly so it's all good.
Even as The Hold Steady seem hell bent on returning the sex and drugs (but mostly drugs) to rock-n-roll they hold up a mirror to the social and emotional risks of youthful indulgence. If the music revels in The Indestructible Age's bigger than life behavior a closer listen paints a more dire portrait of diminishing returns, lost memories and missed opportunities. These are party songs for kids who haven't been kids for fifteen years or more and are too old to party like that. And they know it. So if this is our party then we are celebrating both the indulgence and the consequence. It's like getting the buzz and the hangover all at once, a phenomenon that work-a-days and middle income newly grown-ups alike can better understand than the nineteen year old fuck-ups they used to be. Like the substances of abuse themselves, it's a little too much to take in at once.
And that's the point. Life and love and all the other stuff is hard, so we seek the occasional chemical vacation. Trouble is, weekend fugues, however fun, leave us addled and less prepared to deal with life and love and the other stuff we were trying to escape, so we seek the occasional chemical vacation... The Hold Steady sound as if they've been there and, without judgment or malice, want us to feel both sides of the experience. Life is complicated. Rock and roll is not. This lies perfectly punch-drunk in between.
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