Brooklyn-based rockers The Hold Steady have announced a brand new album OPEN DOOR POLICY, along with lead single “Family Farm.” The band’s latest record will be released on February 19, 2021 on the band’s own Positive Jams record label via Thirty Tigers. The new record marks the group’s eighth full-length studio effort and is currently on pre-sale.
“Family Farm” sees the alternative group at their Americana pop-rock best, as singer Craig Finn does Tom Petty-esque talk-singing over melodic pianos and guitars between a rollicking punk-thrashing chorus. It all makes for some great songwriting and will surely be a welcome return to the band’s dedicated following.
Discussing the new track, Finn says he knew it had his favorite ingredients for a Hold Steady song right away. “Songs are created a bunch of different ways in The Hold Steady, but to me, our most classic songs are driving rock songs with piano breaks,” explains Finn. “‘Family Farm’ fits the bill. Overall, it feels like a song that will be fun to play live – uptempo, dynamic, and a chorus with shout-along potential.”
As for the new record, Finn explains while it was recorded before the pandemic, it is still relevant to the current day and age. “OPEN DOOR POLICY was very much approached as an album vs. a collection of individual songs, and it feels like our most musically expansive record,” says Finn. “This album was written and almost entirely recorded before the pandemic started, but the songs and stories explore power, wealth, mental health, technology, capitalism, consumerism, and survival – issues which have compounded in 2020.”
According to a press release, the band will “herald OPEN DOOR POLICY this week at the 2020 edition of Massive Nights, the band’s legendary multi-night celebration of music and community held each year at Brooklyn, NY’s Brooklyn Bowl.” The band’s performances are scheduled for December 3, 4, and 5 and will be live-streamed “around the world.” Single-night tickets and three-day passes are currently available exclusively at FANS.LIVE. The site is also selling limited tickets to an additional Soundcheck/Happy Hour event on Friday, December 4.
OPEN DOOR POLICY will be the band’s second LP with its new extended lineup after 2019’s Thrashing Thru the Passion. After debuting as a quartet the band now consists of Finn (lead vocals, guitar), Tad Kubler (lead guitar, backing vocals), Galen Polivka (bass guitar), Bobby Drake (drums, percussion), Franz Nicolay (keys, harmonica, backing vocals) and Steve Selvidge (rhythm guitar, backing vocals).
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