The price of progress

"[The album follows] a blueprint the band has worked with from its inception, anthemic tunes married to dense, character-driven lyrics, and if the Hold Steady sound a lot more polished and accomplished in 2023 than on 2004's Almost Killed Me, they've gained far more than they've lost in the course of their evolution. The Price of Progress finds them writing and performing at the top of their game ... Craig Finn has matured into the best short story writer in rock & roll, penning compact tales that are powerfully evocative as his characters wrestle with the circumstances life has dropped them in, and the band matches him brilliantly at every turn, full of nuance on numbers like "Distortions of Faith" or turning up the guitars and letting rip on "Flyover Halftime"".

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"Despite some murky production by Josh Kaufman of the Fruit Bats and Bonny Light Horseman, the Hold Steady turn these songs into weird, vivid snapshots, always looking for new ways to soundtrack Finn's globetrotting tales, whether that means the '70s spy motif that adds a wink to "Understudies" or what sounds like an '80s TV theme that casts "Perdido" as a strange period piece".

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"Sounding like they're just getting started: On the - considerable - strength of 'The Price Of Progress', the 20th anniversary of The Hold Steady's foundation has not incalculated existential anxiety. These songs fizz as freshly as if the group have only just discovered that combination of the post-punk pugnacity of prime Attractions with the acerbic disquisitions of a spoken-word Springsteen".