GooseRadio Review: The Hold Steady – ‘Heaven Is Whenever’

If you’ve ever felt like you’re the only one who romanticizes, not the elusive “one” (which doesn’t actually exist, but that’s another topic for another place), but rather your favorite album and band, meet Craig Finn, the everyman who fronts The Hold Steady. He knows exactly what you’re talking about.

Heaven Is Whenever is an album about and for album lovers. It’s a rock and roll record about the ramifications of rock and roll. It’s for those of us who obsess over the records and shows that shaped us, for yours truly it’s Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity and a Dashboard Confessional show in St. Louis, for Finn it’s a Youth of Today and Shelter show at the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis (see “Barely Breathing”).

Finn’s musings on his various functional heavens are telling throughout as his Catholic upbringing still refuses to stay repressed. “Our Whole Lives” is the most glaring example as he lets us know that, “Tonight we’re gonna have a really good time/But I want to go to Heaven on the day I die/Going to make like a preemptive strike/Hit the 5:30 mass early Saturday night.”

On the de facto title track “We Can Get Together” Finn expresses what all true music lovers feel in their heart, “Heaven is whenever/we can get together/lock your bedroom door/and listen to your records.” On paper, it may look uninspiring, but listen to the song and you’ll want it to be the focal point of all your future mix tapes.

As with previous albums, these songs are telling stories about people and places we all know, have heard of or have been. “Hurricane J” is a windows-down rocker about that pretty girl you wish would stop making all those bad decisions, and “The Sweet Part of the City” is about that one year you look back on with such fondness, you know the one, and so does Craig.