Cold War Kids - Live

Cold War Kids
Bloomsbury Ballroom, London
Monday 11th August 2008

When a sizeable group returns from a lengthy break it can take time to readjust and even longer for crowds to engage with unknown songs, but old hits can be relied on to see shows through. Not here: the new sounds not only fresh but filthy, the old sounds timely and timeless and the band sounds hungrier than ever.

Nevertheless, it starts in typical cobweb-blowing lethargy. After a bumbling blues blowout, ‘We Used To Vacation’ is dispatched early, a castaway of their strongest track that thuds around without ever really connecting, as if they’re aware the crowd won’t care when they know what’s coming. The rhythm’s stagnated, never flowing free, as Nathan Willett sounds restrained, tight. Guitarist Jonnie Russell’s mistimed bouncing doesn’t ring true, failing to ignite any relation. They’re building though, waking up.

Tonight is about new songs. Cold War Kids don’t merely debut them in the hope the watching hordes will approve; they bludgeon them with cut after cut of astonishingly stark but meaty music, ferocious in their relentlessness if not their demeanour. Not that Willett isn’t frightening. “I keep my anger on the end of a string that’s wrapped around my fist,” he barks, scraping under the surface. A broodier Josh Homme, he emanates masculinity without ever approaching aggressiveness, an all-American mystery. If you cut him he would bleed stars and stripes, but he’d probably get you first.

He’s beyond being the focal point, more a nucleus around which the other players’ electrons collide. Matt Maust’s eager eyes never avert far from Willett’s movements, his instrument often inches from the singer’s skull as ‘Mexican Dogs’ charging rock doesn’t get feet moving as much as legs stomping. Tempo alters in an instant, a stuttering piano twinkle twisting into a rollicking blues staple in the shake of a head, the twist of a string.

They play with a pained freedom, like it’s cost them something to be this joyfully reckless. Fan favourite ‘Hang Me Up To Dry’ illustrates this, managing to be utterly shambolic but completely gripping. Willett’s piano playing is far worse than amateur but thoughtlessly fitting, while a bottomless bass line reverberates around a song in no need of a hook but giving one anyway.

Character rings through in two flashes of lucid songsmithery, the beautifully coarse ‘Hospital Beds’ and self-proclaimed love song ‘Every Man I Fall For’. They’re silent moments, sweetly delivered without a hint of pity or indulgence, still sounding raw enough to break. The newbie is all vocal delivery, a deftly-controlled performance amidst the momentary calm.

Soon menace returns as the lights disappear and are replaced by torches glaring out from the stage. It’s time to be raucous, ‘Rubidoux’ a frantic snarl, new single ‘Something Is Not Right With Me’ adding a touch of pop to the growling rock of it’s predecessor and ‘Saint John’ a triumphant closer. Their second record, Loyalty To Loyalty, is out next month and if the first album’s filler is banished in favour of tonight’s grit and style, it won’t just be already-devoted fans buying it.