The Hold Steady – A Positive Rage

Live records are a hit or miss endeavour. At times they can become instant classics and go down in the annals of music history (Johnny Cash), other times they can become fan favourites documenting a key moment in a band’s history (Blink182) or a band at the top of their game (Green Day), or there are the times where they can perfectly recap a band’s history with a thirty song set that reminds everyone listening why the band lasted as long as they did (Good Riddance). Those are the hit ones; the miss ones are sadly much more commonplace. They’re records that have no real lasting impact on the fans and are just sort of there for the sake of being there. Massive fans and major completists will devour them, but other than that there’s not much to note.

The Hold Steady’s A Positive Rage falls into the miss category.

Fresh off the heels of Stay Positive, the follow-up to their critically acclaimed breakthrough album Boys and Girls in America, A Positive Rage is a seventeen song set recorded in Chicago last year featuring seven tracks from Boys & Girls with the remaining ten coming from the band’s other three releases. Despite the solid song selection, and the fact that singer Craig Finn effortlessly mixes in the in-between song banter right into the songs – particularly in the extremely elongated eleven minute closer of Killer Parties; A Positive Rage still feels unnecessary.

A Positive Rage offers nothing which is truly memorable or unique but instead feels like a simple “best-of” collection of songs with a lower recording quality. The odd flourish and little live adjustment makes the songs slightly different than their recorded brethren but only truly hardcore fanatics will notice most of the changes as it is rarely a massive change (other than the eleven minute Killer Parties). In that way, it’s like Sum41’s Go Chuck Yourself – a nice collection of songs but you already own everything available on here on other releases.

It’s rare that you feel the crowd in the recording, as you rarely hear them sing along and only occasionally hear them cheering; without that crowd involvement it doesn’t even feel like a live recording for 85% of the release.

The Hold Steady continues to be a fantastic band, but A Positive Rage isn’t a record that will be heralded as a must-have. The song selection is good, but the recording quality is subpar compared to the actual CDs and without anything to really make it stand out as a live album, A Positive Rage is very passable; even for the biggest Hold Steady fan.