Luck & CourageDécor **

Franz Nicolay is probably best known as the snazzy moustached keyboardist who brought a dashing E Street Band sense of joie-de-vivre to The Hold Steady until he left the fold this year, yet that’s just one of his many hats. Hold Steady fans who stumble on Luck Courage may be thrown by the lack of a connect between Nicolay’s current buzz and his role in the band as a foil to Craig Finn, but his resume always pointed to a musician happy to throw an assortment of musical shapes. For Luck Courage, Nicolay takes the first steps towards becoming “a vaudeville troubadour” (his words), and this gives us a display of folky chops, half-baked orchestral flourishes and a bunch of songs that are a bit of a mess. Nicolay needs to up his game if he wants to be the main attaction and not just a sideshow. See franznicolay.com

Download tracks:Z for Zachariah