We All Want the Same Things

Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn is one of rock’s great storytellers, a writer who can squeeze a novel into four minutes and still have room for guitar solos. His bittersweet third album follows—as always—the lives of good people stuck in bad situations, from the lonely, Springsteen-esque hearts of “Tangletown” to the deal gone wrong of “God in Chicago,” which marries Finn’s exquisite spoken-word poetry to a melancholy piano ballad.