A good reason to stay positive through the spring: The Hold Steady is done with its fifth album and will have it out May 4 on Vagrant Records. Titled "Heaven Is Whenever," the disc reunited the band with producer Dean Baltulinos, who also produced "Separation Sunday" and engineered "Almost Killed Me." However, in the album's press release guitarist and co-producer Tad Kubler said the band punched into new musical territory on the record, inspired in part by some film score work he did along with new working conditions (they created a makeshift mini-studio on their tour bus and literally worked up songs on the road).

Said Kubler, "This album is sonically more diverse. And I really believe it exposes new elements of the band that we hinted at on other records but weren't able to fully realize until this one. Rather than just concentrate on changes in instrumentation, we made changes to the song writing process. And this helped everyone to experiment not only with their own instrument and where they should play, but where they shouldn't."

As for Craig Finn's view, the frontman said, "The lyrics speak a lot about struggle and reward. Its about embracing suffering and understanding its place in a joyful life. I think that some of the characters from old records are there, but I don't name them by name. I think it continues to examine the highs and lows that we've looked at on previous records."

One other noteworthy bit is this line amongst the PR: "Piano and keys take a backseat to guitar on the new record." That could either be a cause or effect of keyboardist Franz Nicolay's recent departure from the band, which prompted a recent and classy "best of luck" post on THS's site. No word yet on a replacement, but it isn't holding back the band from hitting the road. A tour starts in April and includes a couple big gigs at the Sasquatch Fest near Seattle and at England's Isle of Wight Fest. Stay tuned for a local date, probably over the summer.

(Photo from Bowery Ballroom by Star Tribune's Jerry Holt)