Music Review: Cold War Kids - Robbers and Cowards - Page 3

"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. 

Article Author: Aaman Lamba

Aaman Lamba is a Blogcritics editor, as well as the Publisher of Desicritics.org, a Blogcritics network site covering media, politics, culture, sports and more with a global South Asian focus

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