THE HOLD STEADY "Separation Sunday" French Kiss SWEARING AT MOTORISTS "Last Night Becomes This Morning" Secretly Canadian
Friday, January 27, 2006; Page WE10
THE HOLD STEADY"Separation Sunday"French KissSWEARING AT MOTORISTS"Last Night Becomes This Morning"Secretly Canadian
FANS OF mid-'70s Bruce Springsteen will probably have one of two diametric reactions to the Hold Steady, a Brooklyn quartet that sounds as if it weekends regularly in Asbury Park. Sympathetic listeners will appreciate singer-lyricist Craig Finn's tribute to the wild, the innocent and so on; others will recoil from the derivativeness of it all.
To be fair, Finn's demimonde isn't precisely Springsteen's. The lyrics on the band's second album, "Separation Sunday," are artier and more obscure, full of druggie lore, religious references and call-outs to noted authors -- "Hey William Butler Yeats!" -- and outfitted with such jokey titles as "Stevie Nix." But Finn, who achieved modest renown with Minneapolis's Lifter Puller, delivers his neo-beat verbiage just like his model. And the band, supplemented by keyboards, horns and female backup vocals, balances grit and grandeur. One thing for sure: The Hold Steady has the skills to deliver an original vision, if it ever finds one.
Relocating from Ohio to Berlin, Swearing at Motorists took a much longer journey of self-discovery than the Hold Steady. But the band travels light: It has only two members, and its songs are usually as fleeting and fragmentary as those of Guided by Voices (in which the group's previous drummer briefly served). "Last Night Becomes This Morning" features a few guest musicians, but the duo's sound remains spare. Accompanied by Joseph Siwinski (or, occasionally, others) on drums, singer-guitarist Dave Doughman dominates the band's keenly structured if lyrically oblique songs. His vocal style ranges from folk-rocker to lounge-lizard as his guitar shifts from gentle finger-picking to hard-rock power chords. Add some multitracked harmony or contrapuntal vocals (also by Doughman), and such tunes as "Time Zones and Area Codes" prove more substantial than their abbreviated running times might suggest.
-- Mark Jenkins
Appearing Wednesday at the Black Cat with Plastic Constellations.
