Cold War Kids - Mine Is Yours

Even though their last album was not received well, I still liked it and would argue the everlasting hotness of "Against Privacy" until I die. So, I'm giving this album a listen even though initial reports have CWK trying to bank on a Kings Of Leon-style crossover. I'm afraid we're going to mire too deep in the pop and the insipidness. No offense to KoL, of course.

But that's what they do throughout the whole record. Any experimentation is downplayed. Songs are tight and streamlined. Choruses are big. And the band that has written songs about artist culture, alcoholic fathers, till-stealing homeless, and... isn't their biggest hit just about clothes? Anyway, they now stick feet firmly planted in lover's lane.

Now, I don't want to be a mopey unromantic type. I like a good love song like any good Hagarite should. But it's still a bummer pop-calculation move. And unlike the Kings, whose hooks on their breakthrough were absurdly undeniable - the CWK doesn't play things up that big. I still think that "Finally Begin" and "Bulldozer" has every making of a Train / Maroon 5 hit- but it's too far away from what I like about them.

There is one that got me. A pop tune with admittedly silly lyrics that inexplicably I'm a fan of. Just as inexplicable, is whatever reason some skaters made "Broken Open" their backing track to the video below.

So, the album has the stuff that could make it successful; but it won't make the Kids into Kings. (2.5 of 5 stars)