Review: The Hold Steady, Open Door Policy
The Hold Steady, Open Door Policy, Positive Jams/Thirty Tigers
Few albums define a genre while most live within it. Records like the Arcade Fire’s Funeral, The Postal Service’s Give Up, and Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D City seem to come from out of nowhere, crashing into the musical landscape like an alien spaceship to earth. The Hold Steady’s 2006 record, Boys and Girls of America, was that kind of an album. With its wink and nod to classic rock acts that most bands wouldn’t cop to enjoying — let alone put to wax — to Craig Finn’s literary delivery that existed somewhere between Bukowski and Springsteen, Boys and Girls of America was proof that guitar rock still had a pulse despite the growing dominance of electronic music.
Following up on a masterpiece is never easy. While the Hold Steady’s subsequent release, Stay Positive, was hailed by critics for its textured storytelling and more-subdued sonic palette, the band struggled with their identity thereafter. Were they a heady yet gritty rock ‘n’ roll band? Or were they a smooth-and-polished act destined for amphitheaters? On their 2010 record, Heaven is Whenever, and Teeth Dreams in 2014, the band tried to be both. Neither record is bad; but they’re both awkward, due to a clean and crisp sound that just doesn’t mesh with the band’s wry intellect and barroom moxie.
The kooks found their footing again with the release of Thrashing Thru the Passion in 2019, their first album with keyboard player Franz Nicolay since Stay Positive. And now with their newest album, Open Door Policy, the band makes it clear that their late-game Hail Mary pass wasn’t a fluke — it was just a warm-up. On “Lanyards,” a tale of woe about relocating to California from the Midwest, Nicolay’s piano playing drips with nostalgia, reminding us how pivotal his presence was to Boys and Girls of America. When Finn sings “she couldn't come down and crash until we listened to 'Wipe Out'” over agile keys and measured tom hits, it feels like he’s leading us into a time machine set to the band’s heyday. On Open Door Policy, the Hold Steady do what many bands with long careers can’t: they revive their former sound without ever sounding forced or desperate.
As Open Door Policy continues, these return-to-form moments feel more like teasers than the album’s heart and soul. Boys and Girls of America may be the inspiration, but it’s only a jumping-off point for the band to study up on new chapters of the classic-rock textbook. Sometimes, the songs on Open Door Policy sound strikingly similar to the source material; the album’s triumphant closer, “Hanover Camera,” sounds like Tom Petty’s “Breakdown” if it were infused with soulful horns and Finn’s apocalyptic voice-over: “The party with the python in the shower / Heather with the henna on her hands / Once we started mixing it with sodium bicarbonate / We got backstage and hung out with the band.” Lyrically, Finn is at the top of his game, dishing off-the-cuff details and clever lines, while rarely losing the humanity of the album’s main characters.
While Open Door Policy is held together by melodic highs — “Lanyards” may be the catchiest song they’ve written in years — not all of its tracks are easy listening. Songs like “The Prior Procedure” are challenging at first, due mostly to Finn’s dense lyrics and nasally, spoken-word performance. But after a couple of spins, his grating vocals blend into the mix, giving the musicians some much-needed space to loosen up and rock out. The band sounds tighter than ever on “Me and Magdalena,” employing buzzy organs and epic guitars to animate Finn’s ruminations about groupie life: “Sucks to be abandoned, certain songs can really sting / But I still admit that psychopath can sing.”
Open Door Policy is not a quarantine record. In an interview with Esquire, Finn said that the album was 90% done by December of 2019. The album is set amidst the backdrop of the #MeToo movement and the music industry, themes that constantly reverberate throughout the album’s ten tracks. Open Door Policy is a dark journey into the power struggles and gender issues that lurk backstage in green rooms and tour buses. But it’s one that the Hold Steady guide us through with lightness, humor, and — most importantly — a new-found joy of playing music. In other words, the Hold Steady finally sound like themselves again.
Listen to Open Door Policy below at Bandcamp.