Drugs

The final record from the Hold Steady on my listening list is Separation Sunday.  (If the number of albums isn’t indicative enough, you need to check out this band if you haven’t already.)  Separation Sunday received a final Metascore of 86, making it the highest-rated album of the three I have heard.  Separation Sunday is also the oldest of the records I have heard, having been released in 2005.  Musically the band performs the same straight-ahead rock they played on the other records.

The challenge with any Hold Steady record is connecting the stories from album to album.  Separation Sunday is another record linked to other records, first to their debut record Almost Killed Me and later to Boys and Girls in America and finally Stay Positive.  In retrospect, I wish I had listened to these albums rather than taking them individually.  I think I would have understood a little better.  The characters are the connection here.

On this record Craig Finn writes about three characters: himself as the narrator, Holly, and Charlemagne.  Holly is the primary character, though.  She is a troubled woman, struggling with religion while battling drug addiction and having to prostitute herself to get a fix and stay alive.  Through the record she battles her demons, trying to have a conversation with God while at the same time trying to find that fix she’s needing.  Craig as the narrator travels from place to place, party to party, running into Holly but never connecting with her, ultimately feeling sorry for her.  Charlemagne is Holly’s pimp who gets deep into business he shouldn’t have.  In the end (“How a Resurrection Really Feels”) Holly returns to her home church to try to atone for everything she had done wrong.

Finn’s writing abilities are extraordinary.  He’s fantastic at incorporating references to many, many different people/places/activities/things in his songs.  ”Cattle and the Creeping Things” references the bible in different places of the Old and New Testaments.  He references a high school in Minnesota in “Hornets! Hornets!”  He references Jane’s Addiction and Lionel Richie.  The density of references in his songs and puns and word plays makes multiple listenings necessary to capture everything.  Finn’s lyrics are what make the Hold Steady such a fascinating band to hear.

I am torn on this record.  Musically Separation Sunday doesn’t move me the way the previous two did.  Lyrically, though, it has to be the strongest of the three.  This has to be Finn’s best writing job.  I think the Metascore is fitting given the music is not as exciting but still lyrically strong.