Well, I liked the beat. Long Beach rock band Cold War Kids released their fifth album entitled “Hold My Home” on October 21st. The Cold War Kids are a four member band, composed of vocalist/guitarist/pianist Nathan Willett, bassist Matt Maust, drummer Matt Aveiro, and guitarist Jonnie Russell. The band has been around since 2005, gaining a buzz from there. According to itunes, their influences range from Billie Holiday to Velvet Underground.

    The band’s unique sound and impassioned live act generated a buzz — particularly from bloggers — that grew with each tour and release.

    “Hold My Home” has a severe case of “one track,” meaning that the whole album sounds the same track after track. I would say that there are three out of the 11 tracks on here that don’t uniform themselves, only because of significant changes.

     The reason I feel things sound the same on the album is because the lead singer, who has an interesting voice, doesn’t make an attempt to change the delivery of his lyrics, the same infliction is used on almost every song. The lyrics on here are also pretty ignorable due to the fact that Willett keeps going with an almost over exaggerated singing, he could be saying anything and you would not give a damn. He doesn’t say anything significant to get me interested in the song, I would feel bored if it weren’t for the instruments.

     The moment when the album gets interesting is on the song “Hot Coals,” where Willett hits the high notes consistently throughout the chorus. On the song “Harold Ballroom” you here an electric piano, which really differentiates the song from the rest of the album. Then there’s “Hear my baby call.” The only thing that pulls this from the rest of the album is that there is a girl singing on the track.

    A positive piece is the music to the songs. The instrumentation on this album goes from slow moving and steady, on  “Go quietly”, to energetic in “Hot Coals” and “Hotel anywhere”, to smooth and melodic like “nights and weekends” or “Harold Ballroom.” Being that the music is put together so well, it beats out the weak lyrics, almost shadowing them.