Hip To Be Square

...Is the way I would describe my feelings about Cold War Kids. I anticipate their debut album, I anticipate their live show and I anticipate their energy.

The Tapes n' Tapes / Cold War Kids at the Middle East here in Boston is not for a couple weeks and I'm sitting here listening to Up In Rags, one of CWK's two EP's, and I'm already craving their performance. It's been some time since I've been this pumped about a live show - oh, yeah, besides the Radiohead show, which is a day before this show.

Up In Rags and With Our Wallets Full are fantastic EP's. I bounce back and forth listening to them and don't even think I can decide on my favorite. Both have outstanding song lyrics and rhythmic styles. I think that there is a lot of rhythm lacking in many of the bands out there today. And I'm not talking about crazy syncopated jazz rhythms, I'm talking about an underlining pulse that fluctuates along with a deep bass line to structure the songs being. So many bands focus on the reverb of a guitar and the airy piano and floating vocals to make their band seem, well, trendy and hip. The drums and bass are the most essential instruments in song writing. And these boys from Fullerton, CA know this all to well.

Added on top of their strong foundation you have Nathan's vocals and lyrics that many have compared to the likes of Jeff Buckley. To me, that wasn't the first thing that jumped out. I found a similarity in Nathan's singing style to that of Zach De La Rocha. And that might be because I was introduced to CWK not through their studio performance but during their live performance, opening up for Two Gallants. He attacks the mic just like Zach would do and hits each note with such force that his vocals, while whinny at times, have a tendency to shatter through you.

The final striking feature of Cold War Kids is the guitar work. Being a guitar player myself it is one of the first instruments my ears tune to when listening to a band. The sound here is part retro and has that California surf twang to it and part indie rock. At times the guitar player reminds me of Edge, taking a similar minimalist approach to his solos. That was always an important lesson in music class that it's not how many notes you play but it's how you play them and how you select them that matters.

When I asked Nathan after their performance what plans were in place for an album, he said that they have a lot of ideas in the hopper and that once they get off the road - currently over in Europe - they are going to settle down and collect their thoughts.

YOU MUST SEE THIS BAND LIVE!!!!

But in the meantime, follow the links below to hear their sound. But again, you can not fully understand this group until you see them live.

Buy their EP's, here
Be their myspace friend (see where they are playing near you), here
Download a few tracks:
Hospital Beds
Tell Me In The Morning

"I sincerely miss those heavy metal bands, that we use to go see on the landing in the summer..." Don't fret Jeff, there are many a chances to meet heavy metal drummers over the summer. Especially in your hometown. Here's a short list of festivals to think about:

Bonnaroo
Intonation
Pitchfork
Siren (Free)
Lollapalooza

Vice Records has been kind enough to allow music lovers that are pondering the idea of attending their Intonation festival to download a song from each band playing at the show. Head over to this blog and every week there will be a new song from a different band that you can download. And, sign up to possibly win some free tickets to the show by going here.

Wilco:
Heavy Metal Drummer

So we find ourselves graced with another Montreal band, The Stills, coming out with their sophmore album, "Without Feathers". Their debut album, "Logic will break your heart", came out in 2003 and, unfortunately, I was not introduced to their music at this point in time. Both this album and the latter were released on Vice Records.

So, here I am, hearing The Stills for the first time and I must say, their sound is, well, nice. It's not great, it's not mind blowing and it's not revolutionary, it's nice.

The sound off their first album, from what I've gathered from other bloggers and online journals (Filter and the 'fork), was similar to the sound blowing up at the time. This was Interpol and all the other indie pop bands that seemed to be oozing out of the New York City sidewalks . What does that have to do with this album, well, since I've never heard their previous album, that description doesn't really mean too much to me because really this album is much different in my opinion then that NYC sound. And that would make sense after reading on Stylus Magazine's review of the album that the first guitarist is gone, they added a keyboardist, the drummer (Dave Hamelin) has taken up the guitar parts and the vocals are split more evenly between Tim Fletcher and Dave Hamelin. So if you're expecting The Stills from 2003, my guess would be that you're not going to find them on this album.

So, back to their recent release, it starts out with a soulful beginning. And the songs stay pretty soulful for the first few songs with some organ here and there and Tim and Dave really getting in to the vocals. Very accessible and very easy songs to bob your head to. Then, with Helicopter, they kind of settle things down a bit. This song is one of my favorites off the album. It starts off slow but climbs in volume and eventually breaks away with distortion leaving the listener reeling with energy. Then they really slow things down. I've found that on a few of their slow tracks the vocals make me feel like I'm listening to an off-broadway play's soundtrack that is attempting to be the next Rent.

The albums single comes at track 7, Destroyer. Not particularly my favorite track off the album but the singles rarely are so I'm not the bit surprised that it doesn't stand out to me. The "I will destroy you" chorus, really gets under my skin. Not sure why. Sorry.

All in all this album has it's moments. Not sure if this one will be a hanger (meaning, it's going to hang around for awhile on my iPod) but I'm sure I'll find myself coming back to this album when I want to be in a cheerful mood.

Also, Fader Magazine has found their 2006 live show to be pretty rockin.

Check out a couple tracks below and buy the album, here:

Helicopters
Destroyer

Recently came upon the new Stills album, "Without Feathers". So far, pretty darn good. However, for the first few listens I had song 7 in the 3 slot and that just throws me off. So I need a coupld more listens before posting a review. Listen to some of the tracks on their myspace page or stream the whole album, here.

And you can also stream the new Built to Spill album from Inide Radio, here. If have not yet signed up with Indie Radio, go do so.

And on a totally different subject, go here to read some heated blogger arguements about whether or not is was ethical for Music for Robots and Lemond Red to join up with Vice Records for a recent Streets promotion. Personally, I have no qualms with their move. If they don't like The Streets and they were just doing it for the recognition then I would have a problem. But to the best of my knowledge, both MFA and Lemon Red are pretty upstanding bloggers that like music and wouldn't promote a band that they don't like just because a popular label told them to do so.

That's my two cents for the day. I hope to have some Cold War Kids and The Stills posts soon.