Vagrant

With Franz Nicolay and his keyboards departed and Craig Finn taking singing lessons, The Hold Steady pushes past the parking lot and into the hard rock arena on Heaven Is Whenever. From the opening notes of the excellent Exile On Main Street era country ballad “The Sweet Part of the City” to the Tad Kubler -Finn classic rock guitar match of “Rock Problems” to the seven-minute closing Bic-lighting anthem “A Slight Discomfort,” Heaven is Whenever sacrifices whatever anarchic raconteuring was left over from Separation Sunday and settles for the Midwestern AOR rock that the band’s been skirting since Boys and Girls In America. Occasionally, it lapses into a less exciting mix of standard-issue chord progressions ( “We Can Get Together” ) and smoothed over New Wave guitar pop ( “Hurricane J” ). Heaven is pleasurable, if not exactly groundbreaking.