Best Album

The Hold Steady: Stay Positive
Rough Trade

Opening with the killer one-two punch of the blistering paean to gloriously wasted vacations ‘Constructive Summer’ and story-song ‘Sequestered in Memphis’, Stay Positive is the sound of a rock band at the top of their game. Craig Finn’s lyrics are still verbose and red hot (“raise a toast to St Joe Strummer/I think he might have been our only decent teacher“), and The Hold Steady’s electrifying energy is once again evident on the sing-a-long title track and rockers such as the catchy ‘Navy Sheets’ and ‘Yeah Sapphire’.

However, this isn’t simply a replay of their earlier Born To Run-influenced work. Rather, there is a sense of a band maturing, with the album imbued with themes of aging, adult relationships and even murder, the instrumentation fleshed out with harpsichord, banjo, synths and a talk-box. Rowdy, uplifting and intelligent, Stay Positive is a thrilling ride.



Best Concert

Frightened Rabbit
229
16 April

Arriving too late for soundcheck, much of the crowd had left before Frightened Rabbit got up on stage at 10:45 at the 229 Club. Those that stayed witnessed a blistering, shambolic and incredibly intense hour-long set by the Glasgow indie-rockers. Playing most of their fantastic new album The Midnight Organ Fight, frontman Scott Hutchinson was in fine form, jolting and shuddering around the stage to the glorious racket Frightened Rabbit produced.

A lot of the set seemed to revolve around sex, from the key lyric on ‘Keep Yourself Warm’ (“It takes more than fucking someone you don’t know to feel warm… you won’t find love in a hole”) to single ‘Fast Blood’, which Hutchinson told the “miserable fuckers” in the crowd, was a song “about fucking”. Shot through with melancholy, but always powerful and inspiring, this was rock n’ roll made for the 21st century.

Photo of Frightened Rabbit: Rachel Lipsitz