Hear the Hold Steady’s New Songs ‘Confusion in the Marketplace,’ ‘T-Shirt Tux’
The Hold Steady continued their new-song hot streak with “Confusion in the Marketplace” and “T-Shirt Tux.”
The former track blends heavy distortion with anthemic piano, trumpet and zooming synthesizer leads. Frontman Craig Finn opens the cut with an array of surreal lines full of alliteration: “Princess came to breakfast looking puffy from the Prednisone/ Someone’s little sister had me marching to the metronome,” he snarls. “The Maharaji on the mountain with a megaphone/ Reaching for the secrets in the static on the stereo.”
The band adopts a similarly sprawling approach on “T-Shirt Tux,” weaving hard-rock riffs with regal piano and brass. “There’s a candle on the table; there’s a photo on the fridge,” Finn reflects. “There’s a bunch of things we said we were gonna do but never did.”
Both new songs follow a string of double-A-sided singles from 2018, including “Entitlement Crew”/”A Snake in the Shower,” “Eureka”/”Esther” and “The Stove and the Toaster”/”Star 18.” The band released their most recent LP, Teeth Dreams, in 2014.
The Hold Steady recently launched a North American tour, which continues with a run of three dates (September 12th, 14th and 15th) in Toronto, Ontario. Finn and the Gaslight Anthem’s Brian Fallon will launch a co-headlining tour in Boston, Massachusetts on October 2nd.