The Hold Steady return today (March 25) with their sixth album, Teeth Dreams, an effort that finds frontman Craig Finn focused more on the pits of middle-age and less on the highs of killer parties. As SPIN’s Jason Gubbels wrote in his review, “These aren’t bad vibes you shake off with a make-out session inside the chillout tent: Finn’s considering the despair that comes from dead-end jobs and decades of hard living, recreational depressants very much included.”
Still, the follow-up to 2010’s underwhelming Heaven Is Whenever isn’t without its bright spots. Enter “Spinners,” the new LP’s pick-me-up single, which the Hold Steady performed on the Late Show With David Letterman on Monday night. Sure, Finn sings about “flat champagne and inbound trains,” and a lead female character who’s “Got him where she wants him / But she can’t decide if she wants him” (subtext: it doesn’t matter who the “him” is), but the typically cinematic track comes with a silver lining. “Heartbreak hurts but you can dance it off,” Finn points out, later noting, “Once you’re out there / Everything is possible.”
Watch the performance — which, of course, counters its quiet verses with a showy guitar solo coda — above. Be sure to read SPIN’s review of Teeth Dreams, and check out the album’s opening track, “I Hope This Whole Thing Didn’t Frighten You.”