Craig Finn & The Uptown Controllers w/John K. Samson

Celebrated by fans as literary rock ’n’ roll saviors and derided by detractors as a glorified bar band, Brooklyn’s Hold Steady divide their time between rousing tales of spiritual redemption and the American dream and more commonplace accounts of passing out at concerts, stumbling around drunk or making out at a detox tent—stories that lyricist and frontman Craig Finn packs with allusions to the works of Jack Kerouac and fellow Minnesotan John Berryman. Finn’s voice is the driving force behind that band, so it goes without saying that Hold Steady fans will find much to love on his solo albums, including 2015’s mellow Faith in the Future and this year’s ambitious We All Want the Same Things, which, while less rowdy than some of Hold Steady’s most charged records, includes the same redemptive storytelling.