Eighteen years into their career, The Hold Steady aren't seeking to win new converts. But "Open Door Policy" does work some slight changes into their rousing bar-band anthems of bad decisions and flawed redemption.
They bring in a horn section to drive several tracks, including the highlights "Family Farm" and "Unpleasant Breakfast," and they back off their standard gigantic riffs in favor of more medium-tempo story songs with more nuanced arrangements. Not that "Open Door Policy" is mellow: It's still loud, dense with words, triple guitars, and Franz Nicolay's florid piano.
It's a more cohesive album than the 2019 return-to-form collection "Thrashing Thru the Passion," full of characters in unfulfilling jobs and dysfunctional relationships making poor pharmacological choices.
Finn is a master of the telling detail, often alliterative: a ringtone that plays Van Halen's "Eruption," a penthouse "with the windowpane walls," "the grackles at the snack bar waging war for popcorn and potato chips." He treats his messy characters with empathy while the band celebrates them with rock-and-roll.