If you’re a Hold Steady fan (and if you’re not, you’re definitely in the wrong place), 2023 is off to a good start.
Minneapolis singer-guitarist Craig Finn and his long-serving Brooklyn guitar-rock outfit are celebrating their 20th anniversary this year — and to mark the occasion, they just announced the release of their ninth studio album The Price Of Progress, arriving March 31. To preview the disc, they unveiled the crunchy new single Sideways Skull, a typically Finnian fable of rock ’n’ roll fantasy, low-rent romance and druggy burnouts.
“Sideways Skull is a rocking song about rock and rollers,” says Finn. “In this case, they’ve been taken out of the game for a bit of rest, but still keep their dreams alive as they discuss past glories. We loved the big sound of this when Tad Kubler brought it into the band, and the studio performance of it felt especially joyful. We’re happy to put this forth as a first look at The Price Of Progress, and the album’s title even comes from this song.”
The Price Of Progress arrives as The Hold Steady mark the 20th anniversary of their foundation bringing new ideas, sounds, and textures to a still-evolving canon of nine studio album releases that began with 2004’s Almost Killed Me. The album was produced by longtime collaborator Josh Kaufman at The Clubhouse in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and mixed by D. James Goodwin. The Price Of Progress stands as their most sonically expansive record thus far, while also remaining unmistakably The Hold Steady showcasing narrative rock ’n’ roll tales of ordinary people struggling and surviving in a modern world. The front and back of the album cover feature photographs by renowned Minneapolis photographer Alec Soth.
“These are some of the most cinematic songs in The Hold Steady catalog,” says Finn, “and the record was a joy to make. I feel like we went somewhere we haven’t before, which is a very exciting thing for a band that is two decades into our career.”
The Hold Steady will celebrate The Price of Progress with a wide-ranging live schedule, beginning with a performance at Music Hall of Williamsburg on Jan. 28. This will be a special event, with the show taking place exactly 20 years after the band’s first live performance, on the same site (then North Six). Two Dark Birds will be the special opener, harkening back to the January 2003 show where The Hold Steady opened for Two Dark Birds’ Steve Koester at North Six. The week following, the band will head off for a weekend of shows Feb. 2-4 in the mid-Atlantic, playing classic venues in Baltimore and Washington D.C. before finishing in Philadelphia.
The remainder of the year features the 2023 edition of The Weekender, the band’s semi-annual multi-night live event for fans in the United Kingdom and Europe, set to take place at London’s Electric Ballroom (March 10-11) and Colours Hoxton (March 12). This will be followed by visits to Portland, New York City, Boston and Chicago.
And if all that isn’t enough Hold Steady for you, on Dec. 30 they dropped another free live album, recorded in L.A. in September. Listen to it below.
THE HOLD STEADY – LIVE 2023
JANUARY
28 – Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg (Official 20th Anniversary Show) #
FEBRUARY
2 – Baltimore, MD – Ottobar ^
3 — Washington, DC – Black Cat ^
4 – Philadelphia, PA – Brooklyn Bowl ^l
MARCH
10 – London, UK – Electric Ballroom *
11 – London, UK – Electric Ballroom *
12 – London, UK – Colours Hoxton * (SOLD OUT)
MAY
12 – New York, NY – WFUV Highline Bash
JUNE
30 – Chicago, IL – The Salt Shed †
JULY
1 – Chicago, IL – The Salt Shed † (SOLD OUT)
2 – Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle
NOVEMBER
29-30 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Bowl **
DECEMBER
1 – 2 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Bowl **
# w/Special Guest Two Dark Birds
^ w/Special Guests Friendship
* The Weekender 2023
† w/ Special Guests The Mountain Goats and Dillinger Four
** Massive Nights 2023
