In ""Hornets! Hornets!,"" Craig Finn claims, ""I guess the heavy stuff ain't quite the heaviest by the time it gets out to suburban Minneapolis."" Finn spent his formative years in Edina, Minn., witnessing first-hand how a bottleneck effect dilutes all mediums of entertainment to relative monotony. Thousands of lakes and hundreds of highways removed from the American bright lights and big cities where kids get their kicks and boys and girls have such sad times together, Finn posed the Replacements' and Hüsker Dü's pent-up disenchantment as hyper-literate narratives to document a wider scope of angst than their own inner rage.
Finn wears his guitar strap especially low for an old guy, but he speaks with impressive experience for a young guy. He's seen a lot, but he hasn't lost his perspective. And if there's one thing we can count on from the Hold Steady, it's that, six years later, they still won't lose that perspective. Finn still makes sure to ""concentrate when we kiss,"" so as to avoid sappy romanticism and prevent his narratives from becoming over-sensationalized. However diluted and mundane music becomes, Finn is there to make sure we don't settle for the heavy stuff unless it's at its heaviest.
