Last week I found myself at Koko with Mrs S to watch Cold War Kids, fresh from the release of their third album Mine Is Yours.
Cold War Kids were supported by Wye Oak and Wild Palms. Wye Oak are a Baltimore duo of Jenn Wasner on guitar and vocals and Andy Stack on drums / keyboards (he plays drums with one hand and his feet, and plays basslines on a keyboard with his other hand; go figure). Their music has been described as folk, but I don't hear it myself. In fact, I couldn't make out very much thanks to heavy distortion on Wasner's guitar which rendered everything fairly flat and uninteresting. I also wasn't really paying attention, so they may have been far better than I give them credit for. Blame a slew of out-of-hours work emails for that.
Wild Palms are a band I've been aware of for a while but have never seen live. Their début album, Until Spring, is just around the corner and I have a couple of their singles ('Over Time' and 'Deep Dive') kicking about on my iPod. Their début was recorded by Gareth Jones, whose work with Depeche Mode, Grizzly Bear, Interpol and others makes him one of my favourite producers (see my interview with him here). Live, the five-piece Wild Palms are a brilliant combination of angular guitars, odd drum patterns, distortion and squalling keyboards courtesy of their vocalist. Vocalists playing keyboards have been forever tainted by Brandon Flowers of The Killers, but Lou Hill manages to sidestep that image, though his Ian Brown-meets-Andy McCluskey dancing at Koko was a little baffling. Their spiky sound brings to mind the taught post-punk tension of Gang Of Four, who they are also supporting this year. An album review will feature here soon, I'm sure.
I haven't really listened to the new Cold War Kids album, which turned out not to be an inhibitor when it came to this concert as they seemed reluctant to play more than three of four tracks off Mine Is Yours (for a band only three albums into their career, this is a little worrying); a shame in many ways as having now heard it a few times since, there are some good tracks here. Gone admittedly is the sonic adventurousness of their début (Robbers And Cowards), replaced by a MOR musical maturity that Kings Of Leon seem to be aspiring toward, yet never quite achieving. (As an aside, David Keenan, writing in The Wire, accurately described bands maturing as 'shorthand for playing the game by someone else's rules'.)
As it happens, if I'd wanted to prep properly for this gig, it would have been their second album that I should have listened to, as the tracks from that release dominated the set. Stalwarts like 'Hospital Beds' and 'Hang Me Up To Dry' from Robbers And Cowards garnered the biggest crowd reaction, and I could just about hear them above the chattering inchworms stood next to us, making me wonder once again why people buy tickets to gigs and then natter away like they're in a pub.
I remember reading back when Cold War Kids arrived that on stage the guitarist, bassist and Woody Harrelson-meets-Charlie Brooker vocalist Nathan Willett would whirl about the stage like three out of control aircraft independently crashing, or words to that effect. That sense of clumsily working in three different orbits was in full effect last week and how the three musicians didn't get tangled in each other's cables and fall to the floor is beyond me. I came away more than a little impressed with Cold War Kids after this gig, and we're booked to see them again later in the year when they return to the UK.
Elsewhere this week I've been listening to Josh T. Pearson's first single from his début album Last Of The Country Gentlemen, 'Country Dumb.' Pearson's album has been anticipated for years and this Texas-born, preacher's son has a unique sense of countrified drama. 'Country Dumb' is a beautiful, beguiling track which actually brought tears to my eyes when I listened to it this week. As Last Of The Country Gentlemen is released by my beloved Mute Records, click here to read my review over at my Documentary Evidence website.
Cold War Kids were supported by Wye Oak and Wild Palms. Wye Oak are a Baltimore duo of Jenn Wasner on guitar and vocals and Andy Stack on drums / keyboards (he plays drums with one hand and his feet, and plays basslines on a keyboard with his other hand; go figure). Their music has been described as folk, but I don't hear it myself. In fact, I couldn't make out very much thanks to heavy distortion on Wasner's guitar which rendered everything fairly flat and uninteresting. I also wasn't really paying attention, so they may have been far better than I give them credit for. Blame a slew of out-of-hours work emails for that.
Wild Palms are a band I've been aware of for a while but have never seen live. Their début album, Until Spring, is just around the corner and I have a couple of their singles ('Over Time' and 'Deep Dive') kicking about on my iPod. Their début was recorded by Gareth Jones, whose work with Depeche Mode, Grizzly Bear, Interpol and others makes him one of my favourite producers (see my interview with him here). Live, the five-piece Wild Palms are a brilliant combination of angular guitars, odd drum patterns, distortion and squalling keyboards courtesy of their vocalist. Vocalists playing keyboards have been forever tainted by Brandon Flowers of The Killers, but Lou Hill manages to sidestep that image, though his Ian Brown-meets-Andy McCluskey dancing at Koko was a little baffling. Their spiky sound brings to mind the taught post-punk tension of Gang Of Four, who they are also supporting this year. An album review will feature here soon, I'm sure.
I haven't really listened to the new Cold War Kids album, which turned out not to be an inhibitor when it came to this concert as they seemed reluctant to play more than three of four tracks off Mine Is Yours (for a band only three albums into their career, this is a little worrying); a shame in many ways as having now heard it a few times since, there are some good tracks here. Gone admittedly is the sonic adventurousness of their début (Robbers And Cowards), replaced by a MOR musical maturity that Kings Of Leon seem to be aspiring toward, yet never quite achieving. (As an aside, David Keenan, writing in The Wire, accurately described bands maturing as 'shorthand for playing the game by someone else's rules'.)
As it happens, if I'd wanted to prep properly for this gig, it would have been their second album that I should have listened to, as the tracks from that release dominated the set. Stalwarts like 'Hospital Beds' and 'Hang Me Up To Dry' from Robbers And Cowards garnered the biggest crowd reaction, and I could just about hear them above the chattering inchworms stood next to us, making me wonder once again why people buy tickets to gigs and then natter away like they're in a pub.
I remember reading back when Cold War Kids arrived that on stage the guitarist, bassist and Woody Harrelson-meets-Charlie Brooker vocalist Nathan Willett would whirl about the stage like three out of control aircraft independently crashing, or words to that effect. That sense of clumsily working in three different orbits was in full effect last week and how the three musicians didn't get tangled in each other's cables and fall to the floor is beyond me. I came away more than a little impressed with Cold War Kids after this gig, and we're booked to see them again later in the year when they return to the UK.
Elsewhere this week I've been listening to Josh T. Pearson's first single from his début album Last Of The Country Gentlemen, 'Country Dumb.' Pearson's album has been anticipated for years and this Texas-born, preacher's son has a unique sense of countrified drama. 'Country Dumb' is a beautiful, beguiling track which actually brought tears to my eyes when I listened to it this week. As Last Of The Country Gentlemen is released by my beloved Mute Records, click here to read my review over at my Documentary Evidence website.
