Heaven is Whenever by The Hold Steady

A record with this many problems shouldn’t be this good, but that’s life as usual for the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn, a guy just far removed enough from his songs of down-and-outs to act as a bar band moralist, but just close enough to them that you wander why and for whom he’s moralizing. You question his authority even as you start to think that maybe he wants you to do just that. His story-songs are hook-strong and delivered in the nasally grandeur of Finn’s singing (stronger and more nuanced than ever as he sings more than speaks) and they all have tremendous problems. The first is the production, which is steeped in power-ballad, roots-rock cliches (so many choirs!) second is the image Finn is trying to project. This band has always been too big for his britches, going for Bruce Springsteen and inevitably falling short and their ambitions are obvious here, as melodramatic as that album cover. The last minutes of the album are ridiculously maudlin

But I must be honest, and despite all I know about propriety, I love this record. Finn, like me, is more or less a rock and roll innocent who fantasizes about the girl he’s wrong for but curls up in bed alone instead (“Hurricane J”) who wishes he wasn’t so happy so he could write better songs (“Rock and Roll Problems”) who’s livin’ for “The Smidge”. He has a way with honesty that here he pairs with some of his strangest and sweetest sentiments without ever resisting the urge for an arena-filling guitar solo. In a world where tuneful nice-guys are confined to the wasteland of twee, indie pushovers, Finn’s nice-guy is inspiring because he understands how unappealing the nice-guy is, but wants to try for it anyway. 4/5