The Hold Steady

The Hold Steady have shared their latest single, 'Sixers,' available now at all DSPs and streaming services. The track heralds the band’s ninth studio album, The Price of Progress, arriving on their own Positive Jams label via Thirty Tigers on Friday, March 31. It will be available digitally as well as on CD, standard black vinyl, translucent green-colored vinyl (band store), metallic gold (indie retail), metallic silver (Vinyl Me, Please), and white (Rough Trade). Pre-orders are available now. The Price of Progress is heralded by today’s premiere of the first song, 'Sideways Skull', available now at all DSPs and streaming services.

“‘Sixers’ was written in the first days of the pandemic,” says frontman Craig Finn. “It’s basically a song about knowing your neighbors. Two young professionals meet up in their building late on a Friday night and spend the weekend partying together. They try to find a love connection, but it’s not quite there. It’s hard to make friends when your job is so demanding. Tad and Steve chime in with some beautiful guitar harmonies.”

The Price of Progress also includes the first single, 'Sideways Skull,' available now at all DSPs and streaming services. The track – which The Hold Steady recently performed live at their annual Massive Nights celebration at Brooklyn, NY’s Brooklyn Bowl – was greeted by critical applause from such outlets as SPIN, Relix, NME, Consequence, and Stereogum, which declared it to be “a big, meaty rocker…The Hold Steady are once again returning with a new LP. If the first single is any indication, we should get ready for another ripper.”

The Price of Progress arrives as The Hold Steady mark the 20th anniversary of their foundation bringing new ideas, sounds, and textures to a still-evolving canon of nine studio album releases that began with 2004’s Almost Killed Me. The album was produced by longtime collaborator Josh Kaufman at The Clubhouse in Rhinebeck, NY, and mixed by D. James Goodwin. The Price of Progress stands as their most sonically expansive record thus far, while also remaining unmistakably The Hold Steady showcasing narrative rock ‘n’ roll tales of ordinary people struggling and surviving in a modern world. The front and back of the album cover feature photographs by renowned Minneapolis-based photographer Alec Soth.

“These are some of the most cinematic songs in The Hold Steady catalog,” says Finn, “and the record was a joy to make. I feel like we went somewhere we haven’t before, which is a very exciting thing for a band that is two decades into our career.”

The Hold Steady will celebrate The Price of Progress with a wide-ranging live schedule which includes the 2023 edition of The Weekender, the band’s annual multi-night live event for fans in the United Kingdom and Europe, set to take place at London’s Electric Ballroom (March 10-11) and Colours Hoxton (March 12). This will be followed by more shows throughout the US. Tickets for all announced shows are on sale now.