I love The Hold Steady. They un-ironically play some of the best, seventies-feeling rock n’ roll out there. Their music is full of joy and bombast and their lyrics, spread out over the course of the band’s five studio albums, make people who follow their lyrics feel like they are immersed in one big, epic Bukowski-by-the-way-of-Eggers novel. I tear into each album hoping to play air guitar while hearing tales of a girl named Hallelujah (but you can call her Holly) and guys named Gideon and Charlemagne, girls who can tell which horse finishes first and all those killer parties, and for the most part I’m rewarded handsomely.
The Hold Steady’s fifth album, Heaven is Whenever, was a strange record. It contains some of my favorite individual Hold Steady songs, but it’s also their weakest album. In a weird way, it was a sign that things needed to be shaken up.
Taking a cue from that, The Hold Steady’s lead singer Craig Finn has released Clear Heart, Full Eyes, his first solo album. The album feels warm and familiar – Finn’s voice is unmistakable, but everything else feels different. The bombast is missing and there appears to be all new characters fucking up the same old things in these songs. It’s a bit alarming at first for longtime Hold Steady fans, but upon multiple listens it’s the record that Hold Steady fans need. Why is that? Allow me to explain.
For the last three or four records, The Hold Steady have felt like a band dying to mature. Finn is singing more instead of just ranting, there are vocal harmonies and the songs feel well-written instead of the big swaths of classic rock impressionism that the band specialized in at the beginning. But in growing up The Hold Steady seem to be losing that intimate, hey bro let me tell you a story quality of their songs. On Clear Heart, Full Eyes Finn is back in his role as the guy at the corner of the bar, doling out anecdotes and parables for the losers. It’s a beautiful thing to hear.
Are there missteps on Clear Heart, Full Eyes? Yes. Sometimes the simple instrumentation doesn’t fit the tales that Finn weaves – “Terrified Eyes”, with it’s big vocal refrain at the end, begs for a Hold Steady-style rave-up. Instead, we are left with a garage-y country feeling shuffle. It could be so much more, but here in the intimate setting of a solo album it just sort of hangs there, buried as track six on the album.
Clear Heart, Full Eyes is a good album. It’s solid and nothing is offensive. Maybe as a fan and booster of The Hold Steady I’m not giving its fair shake because I need to guitars and energy, but Finn’s voice is so singular and identifiable that it’s hard to hear it in a more intimate setting like this one. I’m still listening to it, though. Craig Finn has written a damn fine collection of songs, but in a weird way I think that it’d be better if I didn’t know who he was before hearing it.
