Search - Hold Steady :: Boys & Girls in America

Kissing and telling after a bad trip

Darkest Star | New York, NY | 08/09/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The eleven samples for this CDs are all labeled as "EXPLICIT." Ha!



This is a remarkable album, although one I would want to keep my Ramones loving pre-teen away from - they are doing more than sniffing glue here. Yes, there is much drinking and drugging - I been there and seen that and it is a bit sophomoric and repetitive, but this band just rocks and it is funny and bright at times deadly brilliant. And, if you are bright they tell you the downside of constabnt partying.



"Citrus" is tender and accurate - soft and understated. Wonderful acoustic guitar. I am a pushover for novel love songs. And they lament the violence caused by drug traffic:



"I feel Jesus in the clumsiness of young and awkward lovers

I feel Judas in the long odds of the rackets on the corners

I feel Jesus in the tenements of honest, nervous lovers

I feel Judas in the pistols and the pagers that come with all the powders"



"Chillout Tent" is funny and sad and inspired - Hair for the new those who still have hair. I am a pushover for inventive love songs.



"they started kissing when the nurses took off their IVs,

it was kinda sexy, but it was kinda creepy.

their mouths were fizzy with the cherry cola,

they had the privacy of bedsheets

and all the other kids were mostly in comas."



"You Can Make Him Like You" is explicitly perfect - a desert island song. I am a pushover for cynical love songs.



"they say you don't have a problem

untill you start to do it alone

they say you don't have a problem

untill you start bringing it home

they say you don't have a problem

untill you start sleeping alone"



The chorus/chant on "Chips Ahoy!" is genius and for once outlines the down side of drug dependency - there are drugs, and there is lust but there is no intimacy or honest joy. It is funny and sad song and this makes it almost literature.



"wo-ah-oh-ee-ah-oh-ee-oh

wo-ah-oh-a-ee-oh-oh

wo-ah-oh-ee-ah-oh-ee-oh

wo-ah-oh-a-ee-oh-oh"



Buy this CD. Hear their live free concert on NPR's All Songs Considered Concert podcast.



Vaya con or sin drugs. Just buy it."