Open Door Policy, their eighth album, no less, sits right up there as one of their finest works yet.
While the band’s smoothness may mirror the gentrification of the dive bars it once canonized, its empathy and affection for the dirtbags yearning for transcendence remains as strong as ever.
Maybe the most impressive thing about the band’s eighth album is how the group continues to push beyond its own boundaries.
If art mimics life, then Open Door Policy's musical tension, timely themes and efforts to reimagine the band while remaining authentic deftly capture today's world.
The band have matured without losing their undying optimism and ear for fun.
Brooklyn’s anthemic bar rockers The Hold Steady tell stories featuring a litany of beaten characters on Open Door Policy, but there's light in the darkness.
Although the shadow of Springsteen still lingers, there are more horns this time out, and the band tips their hats to the likes of the Rumour on Unpleasant Breakfast and even Steely Dan on the low-ride groove of Hanover Camera.
Rousing, rueful andvery funny: one of their best yet.
Finn’s lyrics ingrain themselves within the cracks of the tables and chairs - the home for where his tales should be told - and you can’t help but reminisce over that feeling of camaraderie embraced on late drunken nights as the band revel in renewed joy with ‘Open Door Policy’.
The band’s ability to get to the heart of this change and create compelling songs from familiar scenes helps make Open Door Policy the best Hold Steady album in over a decade.
Expressed from a first person point of view, the music comes across with a sense of unease, urgency and uncertainty, which, in turn, boosts both interest and intrigue.
By focusing on bringing light and shade into the margins, the Hold Steady wound up with an album that feels vivid and alive; it's as if the songs themselves have a life outside of the recording.
Open Door Policy is quite possibly the best Hold Steady album since 2008’s Stay Positive.
This time around, The Hold Steady aren’t abandoning their principles for shinier production. Their insistence for organic compositions stands out thoughtfully on Open Door Policy, and it reminds us precisely why we fell in love with The Hold Steady in the first place.
Dark, ominous, but still marching forth with that same bar-rock passion, the Hold Steady feel more unified, making a place for each member within their music’s newfound sprawl.
The Hold Steady are a warm port in a cold storm, and Open Door Policy is sweet relief from this shocker of a year. Best enjoyed loud and often.
This late in the game, Craig Finn should have run out of punk-rock-noir narratives, but, nope, the lyrics on the eighth THS album are as vivid as ever, and the guitars ring true.
There’s little in the way of new ground broken here, but it’s consistent nonetheless.
Perhaps the best thing that could be said about Open Door Policy is that it’s a Hold Steady album, with all the merits and flaws that go with that signifier.
The Brooklyn-based rockers add a splash of brass to their everyman stylings on this lyrical eighth album.
Like the title implies, it's hard to see the Hold Steady's latest album as something more than just another shrewd career move.
En definitiva el fuerte de la banda, como he leído en varios de los comentarios, no es su vocalista; en ocasiones me recuerda mucho a Damon Albarn, pero más deslavado, en otros de sus proyectos que no son Gorillaz, como The Good, The Bad & The Queen o en sus discos en solitario. Mas el sonido me resulta interesante sin llegar a lo espectacular. Para considerar que estamos ante una banda en su octavo disco, y con más de quince años de carrera, créanme ... read more
This is my first exposure to The Hold Steady, an alternative band that’s been performing together for almost twenty years. On “Open Door Policy”, my first impression of the band is that there’s a lot here that could be great if it weren’t for one specific weak spot.
Being given the tagline “Power, Wealth, and Mental Health” by frontman Craig Finn, “Open Door Policy” is filled with heartland rock and indie rock tunes in a similar vain to ... read more
Open Door Policy is an interesting combination of heartland rock with indie pop and a pinch of post-punk. The biggest strenght of The Hold Steady is creating a dreamlike vibe and hypnotic atmospheres for the entire runtime of this album. The melodies on ODP are intoxicatingly sweet, gentle and captivating; the band is nothing short of fantastic: the production on the guitars is otherwordly, making some of the greatest riffs I've heard in a very long time; the horns enhance the songs and help to ... read more
Forgettable, but in a weirdly good way, 'cause it's sounds really decent and there is some replayability coupled with great lyrics as well.
Open Door Policy takes at least a couple listens to get into and appreciate because the hooks are sometimes either hard to find or hard to come by. With some patience, I think listeners will find a lot to like in the first six songs on Open Door Policy, as well as the closer, Hanover Camera. Generally, the pattern goes something like this: narrative or stream of conscious "talky" verses and a (sort of) catchy chorus with some interesting instrumentation, including horns at times, ... read more
1 | The Feelers 4:45 | 100 |
2 | Spices 3:46 | 76 |
3 | Lanyards 3:54 | 100 |
4 | Family Farm 3:43 | 76 |
5 | Unpleasant Breakfast 4:59 | 100 |
6 | Heavy Covenant 4:39 | 76 |
7 | The Prior Procedure 3:38 | 100 |
8 | Riptown 3:23 | 100 |
9 | Me & Magdalena 3:48 | 100 |
10 | Hanover Camera 3:58 | 100 |
11 | Parade Days 3:16 | 100 |
#9 | / | God Is In The TV |
#9 | / | Rolling Stone: Rob Sheffield |
#25 | / | Double J |
#32 | / | Uncut |
/ | AllMusic |