Separation Sunday

allmusic

rollingstone

The Hold Steady's debut was one of the best indie-rock records of 2004, a left-field barnburner packed with rants about busted romance, a beloved jukebox and "war goin' down in the Middle Western states." Like its predecessor, Separation Sunday is at once surreal and gloriously sweaty, as Craig Finn rails like a man who's seen […]

pitchfork

Second album from these Brooklyn boozehounds finds them molding the reckless shoutalongs of their debut into overdriven beer-soaked party anthems. Vocalist Craig Finn comes into his own here as a lyricist, and as a sweat-drenched and drunk back-alley bawler: His brazen caterwaul may be a brief obstacle for the unprepared, but the bar band blazing behind him is a uniter (not a divider), rapturously comandeering every trick in the rock'n'roll fakebook.