Cold War Kids’ sixth studio album L.A. Divine is, in the artists’ own words, a “tribute to Los Angeles and all its strange glory.” But without the funky beats and ringing guitar that came with their past indie rock sound, this tribute turned out to be just as basic as many other LA-based indie-pop trends. Frankly, their previous music was good but never great, and this new album isn’t even quite that.
The album attempts at the edgy-pop summer aesthetic, the type that accompanies summer drives down sea-side boulevards. Falling short of that, the tracks are unfortunately devoid of depth and originality. Probably the biggest slip-up on the album was the addition of songs like “LA River,” “Wilshire Protest” and “Camera Always On.” These songs attempt to add some amount of creative and “deep” aspects but come up kiddie-pool shallow in the process. “LA River” has more whining than singing, is completely confusing (even after looking up and analyzing the lyrics, I got nothing) and seems to only be filler.
“Wilshire Protest” was an especially lackluster attempt at a “woke” rap track that just didn’t work. It sounded more like the girl from the other school in Mean Girls giving a cheesy speech than a politically charged rap track. There is notable effort, and it included some witty lyrics, but the actual rapping came out unclear, and the speed of the rapping hit a snails pace of delivery that wasn’t engaging.
Personally, I think it’d be best if the group just stuck to singing. These tracks made an obvious effort to provide commentary on the shallow world of LA, and that’s a noble cause, but the songs just don’t have the necessary depth or the right effect to really make the critique of the city’s culture work.
The rest of the songs didn’t even feel like the Cold War Kids, and could have come from any other pop/rock indie band heard on the radio. “So Tied Up” just felt like a poppy combination of X Ambassadors and Bishop Briggs. Bishop Brigs even collaborated on this song, and it made it feel like the Cold War Kids just took their sound, as opposed to being a combination of both artists’ talents to create something new and interesting. “Part of the Night” and “Love is Mystical” had a similar feeling of not belonging to the Cold War Kids and reminded me more of other artists like Imagine Dragons, Bastille and even Bad Suns.
These songs sounded like a desperate effort by the Cold War Kids to measure up to more popular bands, which is totally unnecessary considering that their old sound was original, interesting and would be appreciated by listeners who enjoyed what they brought to the indie genre. This album instead felt like a rip-off other indie-pop artists, which was simply disappointing.
Not all the songs were misses, however, and songs like “No Reason to Run,” “Can We Hold On?” and “Ordinary Idols” felt like the true Cold War Kids were coming through. The band held that original sound — filled with funky echo guitars and Nathan Willet’s wonderfully rich rock voice bringing you across authentic melodies that are equal parts pump-up and introspective. But these songs were few and far between, and they don’t make up for the mediocre tracks on the rest of the album.
The album lost some of the band’s anthemic and electric sound, and replaced it with a mash-up of every other indie-pop band that has graced the Top 100 on iTunes. I’m hoping that their next album will be a return to the Cold War Kids delightfully original indie-rock roots and to a more funky sound from their previous albums we loved in the past. Considering the entire album, good and bad combined, L.A. Divine deserves a 5/10.
Contact CU Independent Arts Writer Tessa Piehl at Tessa.Piehl@colorado.edu.
