The Hold Steady adopt an Exile on Main St. swagger with their brass-heavy new song “The Last Time That She Talked to Me.”
Throughout the track, frontman Craig Finn gazes back on a past relationship, picking apart scenes in reliably dense detail. “If all of my existence is ever on exhibit, tell the curator to emphasize the tape machine,” he speak-sings over chiming 12-string guitars and honking saxophones. “Cause that’s what she was sitting on when we finally started kissing on the last time that she talked to me.”
With each download of the song, a donation will be made to benefit the K+L Foundation, which was formed to benefit the family of the late “Jersey” Mike Van Jura, a mainstay of the Pennsylvania rock scene.
The alt-rock sextet haven’t released a full LP since 2014’s Teeth Dreams. In the interim, they’ve issued four double-singles via Bandcamp: “Entitlement Crew”/”A Snake in the Shower” in 2017, followed by “Eureka”/”Esther,” “The Stove & the Toaster”/”Star 18” and “Confusion in the Marketplace”/”T-Shirt Tux” in 2018.
The Hold Steady will perform their new song at The Weekender, a three-day concert event that launches Friday, March 8th in London, England. The band will launch a North American tour Thursday, May 16th in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Finn will release his fourth solo LP, I Need a New War, on April 26th. He recently previewed the record with opening track “Blankets.”