Last year when I put Cold War Kids’ Dear Miss Lonelyhearts in my top ten I said that they had finally found their voice and put it together in a complete album. I’m glad they put out another album so quickly after last year’s triumph, because Hold My Home is a continuation of the momentum they created.
From the opening piano chords of “All This Could Be Yours”, to the anthemic “First”, to the final “reach out to me” on the last song “Hear My Baby Call”, Nathan Willett and co. hit all the right notes. The band had some missteps with their second and third albums, and their fourth and fifth are the result of working through those disappointments.
The critics hate Cold War Kids because they used to love them. Before their first album, they were an “it” band, but when it came out the critics actually didn’t generally like it. Then their second album was disliked because it wasn’t like the first (I know, that doesn’t make sense). Then Mine Is Yours came out and the critics just abandoned Cold War Kids altogether. Now, they’ve released two excellent albums that essentially don’t exist to the critics. It’s no wonder they put the song “Harold Bloom” on the album. Bloom is a noted literary critic and Willett somberly sings “there will always be another Harold Bloom, Harold Bloom/to criticize your every move”.
Cold War Kids has done their best work in the last few years since the critics abandoned them and they would do best to ignore them altogether, they are doing just fine without them.
Scott Bedgood 