The Hold Steady Separation Sunday-Dx

The intensity of any song on the Hold Steady's SEPARATION SUNDAY should be enough to pop most listeners' sprockets. The project of ex-Lifter Puller vocalist/guitarist Craig Finn, the Hold Steady plays music that draws on the sound and structure of classic rock, complete with air-guitar-inspiring riffs and solos, thunderous drum breaks, blasting horns, and rollicking piano. Yet it is Finn's writing and singing that makes the Hold Steady special. Sounding like a cross between Bruce Springsteen and the Fall's Mark E. Smith, Finn channels his startlingly imaginative lyrics through an angry sing-shout.Finn has a penchant for detail-rich character sketches ("Stevie Nix"), depictions of hard living ("Cattle and the Creeping Things"), and religious metaphor ("How a Resurrection Really Feels"). With lyrics that bear testimony to a life lived to the hilt, Finn's songs overflow with brilliance, anguish, and passion, and even at his most narrative and witty ("Charlemagne in Sweatpants") he paints