Cold War Kids – Mine is Yours compared with Robbers & Cowards

Most bands experience that 'difficult second album syndrome,' which can turn you away as quickly as you fell in love with them in the first place. To counter this, the Cold War Kids (hereafter, CWK) have released a third album that will have you crawling back and begging for tickets... Just try to forget Mexican Dogs...

In 2008, myself and a few friends stood, slightly inebriated, in front of the old stage at the Astoria in London’s West End and saw the CWK belt out tracks from their first album, Robbers & Cowards (2007), and a few songs from their new album, Loyalty to Loyalty (2008). Although I’d listened through their stand-out first album more times than I could remember, the new additions to their set list were refreshing, and yet, somehow familiar. That feeling still resonates through one hearing a new release from the CWK, it is a sound you are used to and still achieves the excitingly new feeling one expects from a new album purchase.

The first track of their new album, ‘Mine is Yours’, immediately quashes any fears you may have had about whether you’d wasted your time and money keeping up with the CWK. This offering, much like the album as a whole, starts low, slow, quiet, emphasises Nathan Willet’s extraordinary talent as a recording-frontman and sends the listener into internal rapture as the piece builds to a finale. The next four tracks (‘Louder Than Ever’, ‘Royal Blue’, ‘Finally Begin’ and ‘Out of the Wilderness’) epitomise the CWK formula for an album; they are catchy and make easy listening after the impressive opening, much as ‘Hang me Out to Dry’, ‘Tell me in the Morning’, ‘Hair Down’ and ‘Passing the Hat’ achieved a similar effect after the listener is blown away with ‘We Used to Vacation’ in their first album.

From the mid-point in these albums, this band shows their worth. In Mine is Yours, ‘Skip the Charades,’ ‘Sensitive Kid’ and ‘Bulldozer’ are the high point of the album. Listening to their third album, one cannot help to notice the similarities with Robbers & Cowards. Much as ‘Saint John’, ‘Robbers’ and ‘Hospital Beds’ stole the show in the performance I saw back in 2008, the core of this album was enough to rediscover my love for the CWK. From this point on, both albums (Robbers & Cowards and Mine is Yours) draw to a natural, understated conclusion that, although not bowling a listener over, are tracks that fit into the formula for a well-crafted album. Other bands have achieved a similar affect within this commercially viable album set-up; with tracks like ‘The Doberman’ and ‘Happiness’ (Kasabian), ‘Where the White Boys Dance’ and ‘Everything Will be Alright’ (The Killers) and ‘Arizona’ and ‘Cold Desert’ (Kings of Leon) never failing to get a mention from each bands’ individual followers. In the utilisation of this formula, the CWK manage to simultaneously compete with comparable outfits and distinguish themselves from the pack.

Aside from Vampire Weekend, the CWK are the stand-out, unique band that successfully, distinguish themselves from a depressingly similar “the bands” collective. Their indie-jazz numbers still have the desired, foot-tappingly catchy quality that other outfits strive for and, despite this, they haven’t betrayed their central fan base and musical origins to achieve a degree of acknowledgement in the cut-throat, competitive world of contemporary pop culture.