THE HOLD STEADY These guys would make the E Street Band proud.

The Hold Steady must be cool with oft-made comparisons to Bruce Springsteen. The band's fourth album, Stay Positive, opens with a rousing number that would do the E Street Band proud, with sometimes-pounding, sometimes-pretty upper-register piano work backing the straightforward, unflashy guitar. All that's missing is a sax solo.

But it's the band's carefully crafted lyrics that have always reminded this Jersey native of the Boss's populist poetry. Though the edges of the Hold Steady's story-songs are sharpened by generationally appropriate jadedness, they still evoke Springsteen's most dearly held values - clear-eyed but empathetic regard for the ragged and damaged characters relegated to the fringes of society (Magic Rat, meet Holly Lujah), and unshakeable belief in the power of youth and rock.

That aforementioned opening track, "Constructive Summer," conjures the latter, and opens the CD with such gusto that you figure the band's been dying to get back on the road. Singing about young people in a dead-end town, Craig Finn implores, "This summer, grant us all the power to drink on top of water towers /With love, and trust, and shows, all summer (Get hammered!)/Let this be my annual reminder that we can all be something bigger." Spirited but not corny, it's an anthem the likes of which few have pulled off since, well, you know.

On the more sober side, there's "One for the Cutters," another that draws on songwriter Finn's fascination with flawed people who make bad choices - in this case, a college girl with a secret dark side ("Sniffing on crystal in cute little cars, getting nailed against dumpsters, behind townie bars"). Set against harpsichord (yes, harpsichord), the song is more plodding than typical Hold Steady fare, but still intriguing, if only for illustrating just how good songs can be when not mucked up with the melodrama that too many performers fall back on.

And that clarity is what makes "Lord, I'm Discouraged" one of the band's most gripping and heartbreaking tales to date. The narrator is a man who's in love with an abused woman who either doesn't want help or is beyond asking for it. "She keeps insisting that sutures and bruises are none of my business/She says that she's sick but she won't get specific ... This guy from the north side comes down to visit, his visits they only take five or six minutes." Even when begging God for a sign that he sees or cares, Finn steers clear of maudlin or sappy. "Bittersweet" is an overused word, but this song truly is.

Longtime fans will find much on Stay Positive that's familiar: sarcasm and word play, references to other Hold Steady songs, mentions of places (including Cleveland and, of course, Ybor City), spiritual subtexts, all layered over grinding guitars, airy keyboards, and sometimes both. And longtime fans will love it. So, too, will anyone who appreciates rock with heart and brains, or who's ever wondered what's going on these days in Jungleland.

The Hold Steady performs with the Loved Ones at 9 p.m. Thursday, July 17 at the Beachland Ballroom (15711 Waterloo Rd., 216.383.1124). Tickets: $15 adv, $17 dos.