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“STAY POSITIVE”

The Hold Steady (Vagrant)

In a way, it’s kind of appropriate that the Hold Steady’s fourth record was released on Tuesday, the 30th anniversary of Billy Joel’s breakthrough “The Stranger.”

Lead singer Craig Finn matches Joels fluency in the modern American Catholic angst and Rust Belt ennui. Joel focused on alcohol as his vice of choice. Finn is a bit more all-inclusive in characters’ pursuits. Pills, poppers, nitrous oxide, heroin, speed, meth — you name it, it’s probably been mentioned in a Hold Steady song.

The comparisons of Joel and the Hold Steady are most obvious when Finn directly quotes Joel’s emblematic line, “Catholic girls start much too late,” on “Both Crosses.”

But “Lord, I’m Discouraged” is more of a direct Joel descendant. It’s not the band’s first down-tempo number (see perennial show closer, “Killer Parties”) nor is it the first to have a strong piano component (pretty much every song since the addition of keyboard player Franz Nicolay three years ago).

The real similarities in this piece, though, are in tone. Never before has the Hold Steady sounded so worn down and beaten: Traits Joel embraced in his career-making ballad “Piano Man.”

Finn spends the majority of the track describing the actions of a girl he’s worried about/infatuated with — the beatings she takes from dealers, the bad crowd she’s hanging out with, the fact that she doesn’t come out dancing any more.

But it’s the line at the end of the song that reminds me most of Joel. “I know it’s unlikely she’ll ever be mine, so I mostly just pray she don’t die.”

While the song is one of the best the band has ever released, it wisely decided not to fill an entire record with similar fare. “Stay Positive” isn’t as immediately accessible as 2006’s “Boys and Girls in America,” but is still packed with enough bar-band barn burners to sound great played loud in a T-top Firebird.

As with any Hold Steady album, “Stay Positive” is going to elicit the words “Bruce Springsteen” and “classic rock.” After all, the band supposedly formed when Finn and guitarist Tad Kubler decided to make a band that sounded like the Band.

But this disc is much more than that. There are plenty of nods to Hüsker Dü and direct shout outs to “Saint Joe Strummer.” The album includes, among other things, Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood adding some vocals, J Mascis on banjo, a “Frampton Comes Alive”-esque talk box and a harpsichord.

Plus, Finn’s trademarked hyper-literate stories are as specific and evocative as ever.

All of that’s what makes “Stay Positive” more than just classic rock. It’s just plain classic. And one of the best discs of the year.