The Hold Steady, "separation Sunday"

Before it was bogged down by pedophilia and Nazi popes, Catholicism was all about the T & A; sexy school girls in thigh-high skirts and cleavage-baring blouses going against their parents' strict house rules by running off with the neighborhood dirtbag and that sort of stuff. Rock'n'roll has never been shy about its affinity for these wayward women of suburban faith, as classic songs such as Billy Joel's "Only the Good Die Young" and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Catholic School Girls Rule" have proven in the past.

But the Hold Steady have spun their plaid'n'pigtails fantasies into a full-fledged concept album, only the girls frontman Craig Finn (ex-Lifter Puller) sings about are all f*cked up on dope to boot. "Separation Sunday" is not only these Brooklyn transplants' best work to date (far surpassing the critically mis-hyped debut from last year), it is one of the grittiest, realest New York rock albums to come out since the Trouser Press folded.

Finn's gritty sing/speak vocals evoke the literary rudeness of Jim Carroll and Lou Reed, while the group lays down riffs like a new school Heartbreakers (the Johnny Thunders version, that is), especially on cuts like "Charlamagne in Sweatpants" and the awesomely titled "Crucifixion Cruise." Yeah, they might be from Minnesota or something like that, but there's a reason why the Hold Steady are the first rock band to adorn the cover of the Village Voice in 15 years. Their sound is pure Bowery, boy.