Cold War Kids: Hold My Home

- Cold War Kids’ fifth album is like the sun coming up in the morning, it’s good but wholly unsurprising. Hold My Home is a self-fortifying statement, the band’s way of drawing a line around their market share and saying, we’re still here. If you’re familiar with the Long Beach group’s brand of bluesy garage-pop, and like what they’re selling, you should be mildly satisfied and probably little more, it’s nothing you haven’t heard before, either from the band or the genre, and feels strangely iterative, like upgrading a piece of technology before it’s necessary. The album is solidly constructed though, with a lot of tempting hooks stuck in it, particularly towards the back half. Some of the tracks reach a little deeper than the rest, songs like Nights & Weekends or Hear My Baby Call, diverging just enough from the rest to be interesting and spaced cleverly to sway you through the whole thing. Sadly, nothing on it ever really pops, only reassures. It’s both pleasant and problematic, like sleeping in when you shouldn’t. If you wanted something different, then there are other places you can go. If you were hoping for more Cold War Kids, Hold My Home is exactly that. - Nic Addenbrooke.