THE HOLD STEADY UNVEIL DELUXE EDITIONS OF LANDMARK FIRST LPS

ALMOST KILLED ME AND SEPARATION SUNDAY TO BE REISSUED ON CD AND VINYL

BOTH LPS REMASTERED FROM ORIGINAL TAPES AND JOINED

BY PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED BONUS MATERIAL

FOUR-NIGHT STAND AT BROOKLYN BOWL SET FOR NOVEMBER 30TH, DECEMBER 1ST, 2ND, & 3RD

DELUXE EDITIONS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER STARTING TODAY, SEPTEMBER 13TH

ALMOST KILLED ME AND SEPARATION SUNDAY ARRIVE ON FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11TH

(New York, NY) Frenchkiss Records and The Hold Steady have announced the long awaited release of Deluxe Editions of the New York-based rock 'n' roll band's milestone first two LPs, ALMOST KILLED ME and SEPARATION SUNDAY. Both albums will be available - on CD and vinyl - from Friday, November 11th.

Pre-orders for both ALMOST KILLED ME and SEPARATION SUNDAY will begin today, September 13th. 

ALMOST KILLED ME and SEPARATION SUNDAY have been remastered from the original tapes, with each now appended by an array of bonus material (see tracklistings below). ALMOST KILLED ME: DELUXE EDITION comes joined with five rare tracks, including the very first Hold Steady 7" single, "Milkcrate Mosh," and songs previously only available on the album's original Australian CD release. SEPARATION SUNDAY: DELUXE EDITION features six additional tracks, including the never before available "212-Margarita" and "The Most Important Thing" along with previously unreleased demos of "Cattle and the Creeping Things," "Charlemagne in Sweatpants," and "Crucifixion Cruise." All extras will be available on the Deluxe Edition CD releases and via vinyl download cards.

As if all that were not enough, ALMOST KILLED ME will be offered on bright blue vinyl, with SEPARATION SUNDAY pressed on pristine white vinyl. The Deluxe Edition LPs mark the first time both albums have been available on vinyl in more than a decade. Digital pre-orders of ALMOST KILLED ME will receive "Milkcrate Mosh" immediately and digital pre-orders of SEPARATION SUNDAY will receive "212-Margarita" instantly.

The Deluxe Editions arrive just as The Hold Steady embark on a very special series of shows celebrating the 10th anniversary of their classic third album, BOYS AND GIRLS IN AMERICA. The band kicked off the festivities at Labor Day weekend's Riot Fest in Denver, CO and will next perform the album in its entirety at Chicago, IL's Riot Fest (Saturday, September 17th) and Toronto, ON's Toronto Urban Roots Fest (TURF) (Sunday, September 18th). The Hold Steady will then take over their home borough's Brooklyn Bowl for four extraordinary sold out BOYS AND GIRLS IN AMERICA concerts, slated for November 30th, December 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. For complete details, please log on to theholdsteady.net/shows.

The BOYS AND GIRLS IN AMERICA concerts mark The Hold Steady's only official headline shows of 2016. All announced BOYS AND GIRLS IN AMERICA performances will see The Hold Steady joined by keyboardist Franz Nicolay, returning to the band's live line-up after more than half a decade. 

Released by Frenchkiss on March 16th, 2004, ALMOST KILLED ME instantly marked The Hold Steady as one of the most vital and original rock 'n' roll bands of the new millennium, blazing with the raw riffs and conceptual songcraft that continue to define their extraordinary canon. Kicking off with the classic "Positive Jam," the album introduces singer/guitarist Craig Finn's utterly unique lyricism and intensely detailed storytelling, a world of tough love, hard drugs, and barstool blues unlike any other before or since. 

ALMOST KILLED ME received unanimous praise upon its arrival:

"Bizarrely touching and insanely original." - Rolling Stone

"Born from the ashes of Minneapolis' beloved Lifter Puller, The Hold Steady emerge as a bar band far too good for the bars, a spectacular mess of sprawling guitar, ferocious vocals, and well-channeled, raucous irritation...Earnest without being sentimental, and authentic without sounding contrived, The Hold Steady are one of the most convincing rock bands to emerge in recent years, a can-crushing throwdown of unadulterated aggression and ear-splitting amps." - Pitchfork

"A striking album about a world in which music both wrecks and saves lives, handing out instructions and inspiration like pills and powder." - The A.V. Club

ALMOST KILLED ME was ultimately ranked at #2 on Rolling Stone's "100 Best Albums of the 2000s" tally, praising its "Springsteen-size cast of characters, lost kids staggering through America in search of sex, drugs and salvation. The band sounded so real and raw, so loaded with compassion and wit and raunch, they became a word-of-mouth sensation. Suddenly the 2000s didn't look so hopeless after all."

SEPARATION SUNDAY followed on May 3rd, 2005 and was greeted as The Hold Steady's finest work to that point - a dazzling collection that forwarded the band's distinctive sound and vision on virtually every level.

As with its predecessor, SEPARATION SUNDAY was also greeted by reams of critical applause:

"The elegiac Biblical lost-innocence junkie odyssey that Denis Johnson never wrote...(Finn is) the poet laureate of the loading dock behind the mall where the runaway kids get together to sniff cheap coke at 5 a.m."  - Pitchfork

"SEPARATION SUNDAY is at once surreal and gloriously sweaty...a whirlwind tour through an overstuffed brain." - Rolling Stone

"A triumph of non-judgmental storytelling delivered within purgative rock 'n' roll." - 5 stars The Guardian

"Chapter Two of indiedom's most incisive soap opera...[Finn's] stories unpack post-hardcore emotional verities, scene mythologies, and tragicomic punch lines." - SPIN

THE HOLD STEADY

DELUXE EDITIONS

(Frenchkiss Records)

Release Date: Friday, November 11th on CD & LP

ALMOST KILLED ME: DELUXE EDITION

  1. Positive Jam
  2. The Swish
  3. Barfruit Blues
  4. Most People Are DJs
  5. Certain Songs
  6. Knuckles
  7. Hostile, Mass. 
  8. Sketchy Metal
  9. Sweet Payne
  10. Killer Parties
  11. Milkcrate Mosh # 
  12. Hot Fries # 
  13. Curves and Nerves # 
  14. You Gotta Dance # 
  15. Modesto Is Not That Sweet # 

SEPARATION SUNDAY: DELUXE EDITION

  1. Hornets! Hornets!
  2. Cattle and the Creeping Things
  3. Your Little Hoodrat Friend
  4. Banging Camp
  5. Charlemagne In Sweatpants
  6. Stevie Nix
  7. Multitude of Casualties
  8. Don't Let Me Explode
  9. Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night
  10. Crucifixion Cruise
  11. How a Resurrection Really Feels
  12. 212-Margarita #
  13. The Most Important Thing #
  14. Cattle and the Creeping Things (Demo) # 
  15. Charlemagne in Sweatpants (Demo) #
  16. Crucifixion Cruise (Guitar Demo) #
  17. Crucifixion Cruise (Piano Demo) #  

# Included on CD and Vinyl Download Card, Not on LP

 

Allison UllrichComment