Pitchfork

Born from the ashes of Minneapolis' beloved Lifter Puller, The Hold Steady emerge as a bar band far too good for the bars, a spectacular mess of sprawling guitar, ferocious vocals, and well-channeled, raucous irritation. Former Lifter Puller vocalist Craig Finn and bassist Tad Kubler (now on lead guitar) are now ably backed by Galin Polivka and Judd Counsell, and their collective spew is awfully impressive: Earnest without being sentimental, and authentic without sounding contrived, The Hold Steady are one of the most convincing rock bands to emerge in recent years, a can-crushing throwdown of unadulterated aggression and ear-splitting amps.

Which is not to say they don't push an intellectual agenda: "Hold Steady" is more than a bandname, it's a self-fulfilling mantra, invoked repeatedly for casual assurance in the face of social/societal disgust ("All you sniffling indie kids/ Hold Steady/ All the clustered-up clever kids/ Hold Steady"). Thus: The Hold Steady are the anti-trucker hat, the anti-laptop, the anti-West-Virginia-t-shirt. And they rock without repent.

Finn's lyrics and delivery are the crux of The Hold Steady, skewering whole characters and lifestyles with unapologetic aplomb. Boasting all the seething, pent-up fervor of someone who's been talk-singing for nearly a decade, Finn expertly shoots his lyrical barbs like little arrows, knocking down and dismantling everything from recreational drugs and the tech boom to bartenders and jukebox codes, all in a familiar, half-smirking growl. The Hold Steady stand staunchly opposed to youthfully misappropriated irony, and Almost Killed Me contains countless glorious allusions to scenesters being stupid: Check "Barfruit Blues"' testimonial that the "Clever kids are killing me/ For one, they ain't that clever.../ This was supposed to be a party," or the presumably anti-electroclash dig, "The 80s almost killed me/ Let's not recall 'em quite so fondly."

Without explicitly finger-pointing to disaffected Brooklynites, or pissing in his own backyard (Finn and Kubler relocated to Brooklyn in 2000), Finn inadvertently derides the kids in plastic bracelets and yellow leather armbands, swinging their arms to fleeting retro jams; obviously, it would be just as easy (if not more so) to counterattack Finn and friends for equally absurd purist-posturing, but The Hold Steady are just so unbearably good at what they do-- and listeners are all inevitably persuaded that the only reasonable thing to do is throw your hair around and chug.

Like any decent barstool poet or rock frontman, Finn can sometimes prod your patience (see "Knuckles"' instantly-tiring holler of "I been tryin' to get people to call me Sunny D/ 'Cause I got the good stuff kids go for!"), or lock himself into periodic lyrical ruts, relying on exhaustive semiotics (see various permutations of: "Lots of people call me," "I'm trying to get people to call me," "My name is _________, but people call me _________") to convey his vague cultural dissociation. But Finn's glib repetitions can be ridiculously fun, given the preposterous amount of genuinely clever bits streaming out of his mouth. And, like any good bar buddy, Finn always buys your next drink.

If Finn's snarky words aren't sufficiently indicting for your hipster-hating self, Tad Kubler's riffage is gory enough to disembowel whole synth-pop bands. Spastically invoking a wide array of historically grinding axmen (from Mott the Hoople's Mick Ralphs to perennial favorite Slash), Kubler mercilessly noodles his way around Finn's toothy monologues; there's an instant disconnect between the vocals and the instrumentation that's enormously compelling, with Finn's sprawling dissertations pausing only to let Kubler scream, each element sidestepping the other in service of a common mission. Ultimately, The Hold Steady end up sounding like a bizarre amalgamation of Lifter Puller and Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band; when they're done with their assault, there's blood on the stage and everyone pours sweat. Just not from dancing.