Music Review: Cold War Kids - Robbers and Cowards
Published June 29, 2007
"Pregnant" is a lyrical stream-of-consciousness take on success, or just an experiment in clever song-writing. Either way, the extreme minimalism and slowed-down chant don't quite work for me.
"Red Wine, Success" is another song about the souring of the American dream, and realizing that "success, success, it's smile and saccharin". The lyrics don't quite fit together in this song, probably an intentional effect but delivering a sense of hearing one side of a conversation with no context. ('Lives his life a painful and loving day/In the history of a great pregnancy'.)
The penultimate song, 'God, Make Up Your Mind' is a vignette of childhood road trips 'from New York to New Orleans/played alphabet/Kansas to Boise/won a battleship/.../daydream about Maria in California'. It uses the slowed-down tempo style, although it works better with this song, and is ratcheted up a couple of times, before lapsing back to slowdom. It hearkens back to the sixties, ruminating that 'you wanna help someone/you gotta be a no one/that's what I figured out/the cat on the street meant.'
The final song, 'Rubidoux' features some exquisite lyrics and a fast-paced tempo. The song is set in the township of Rubidoux in Riverside County, California.The imagery of 'shattered windshields of spidered ice' contrasts with 'empty desert light'. There is a noir sense to the song, referencing 'bourbon and a pistol in the dash, out of sight', cautioning that 'the life you have chosen is filled with dirty finger nails/and lost and found/and canceled appointments.'
It's a fine way to wrap up an album that unsettles while creating memorable word-pictures, coupled with alt-rock notes in the wasteland of the post-Cold War years.
- Music Review: Cold War Kids - Robbers and Cowards
- Published: June 29, 2007
- Type: Review
- Section: Music
- Filed Under: Music: Alternative Rock, Music: Indie Rock
- Writer: Aaman Lamba
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Comments
Here's an online source for the same lyrics - please let me know if anything's been misquoted.
Post-Cold War wasteland.
Dont I feel so optimistic about the future.
They just had their music video for "
Hospital Beds" premiere on mtvU this week







Seems like you have directly mis-quoted a very large percentage of the lyrics on this one. If memory serves, they are all included in the liner notes. Might be worth a read...