Downtown
2008
Loyalty To Loyalty
About This Album
On Robbers & Cowards, Cold War Kids seemed to hit the right mix of rattling rock and atmospheric ballads, and their energy and hooky songwriting overpowered their debt to influences like the Walkmen, the White Stripes, and Spoon. The band doesn't replicate that feat on Loyalty to Loyalty: too many of the rockers start out brash and end up dull, like "Something Is Not Right with Me," which has a great strut that unfortunately doesn't develop into much else. On "Every Valley Is Not a Lake," Nathan Willett's vocals are unfettered to the point of grating, and only emphasize that the band's melodies aren't as strong on this album as they were on Robbers & Cowards. The same problems plague Loyalty to Loyalty's slower songs, such as "Avalanche in B," which drags painfully, and "Cryptomnesia," which closes the album with an unsatisfying meander. Even the band's writerly lyrics often feel overworked instead of clever -- lines like "Against Privacy"'s "We will talk about the pope and Prada shoes/No one gets upset" just feel contrived. To be fair, the album isn't a total disaster and improves as it goes along (excepting that unfortunate final track).
Track List (try tracks 2,4,8,9 and 12)

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