Holding Strong is back to announce a new album, The Price of Progress. It is due on March 31 (via Stereogum), and the indie rock veterans offered a preview with the lead single, “Sideways Skull.”
This is The Hold Steady’s ninth studio album, and follows Open Door Policy in 2021 and frontman Craig Finn’s 2022 solo LP A Lease Legacy. “Sideways Skull” follows a rock and roll manic pixie dream girl, with “Faded denim with the buttons and badges/ Laminates and a backstage pass/ Jacket held up with rock band patches/ They let her smoke but don’t he is a match. “
But there’s more to the song than a character sketch, and “Sideways Skull” soon turns into a celebration of DIY, despite the “devastating problem of warm attendance” and the fact that “nobody’s listening. ” Through the last verse, the narrator reveals that he himself is in a band called The Price of Progress, and “We have a reputation as the toughest in New Hampshire.” At the end of the song, still “no one is listening/ But it sure is nice to meet a fellow musician.” Check it out below, and scroll ahead for the tracklist on The Price of Progress.
The Price of Progress Tracklist:
01. Grand Junction
02. Sideways Skull
03. Carlos is crying
04. Understudy
05. Sixers
06. The Bird Keepers
07. City of Eleven
08. Lost
09. Distortions of Faith
10. Halftime Flyover