Rarebird's Rock and Roll Nest

On Record Store Day 2015, the Cold War Kids issued a 10-inch EP titled Five Quick Cuts , which contained five previously unreleased tracks. The vinyl-only EP was limited to 10,000 copies. True to its title, the short-and-satisfying EP barely takes fifteen minutes to breeze through its five tracks, which were recorded in March and April of 2014. As was the case on the California alt-rock quintet’s two most recent albums, current guitarist Dann Gallucci co-produced the tracks with Lars Stalfors; it is therefore not surprising that the first two tracks sound like they were made by a more disciplined variation of Gallucci's former band Modest Mouse. Those two tracks also take something of a retro-‘80’s approach: “Stop/Rewind” has a synth-rocking sound that recalls that decade, while “Amazing” is reminiscent of that era’s cleanly produced blue-eyed soul. On the EP’s second side, the Kids sound quite similar to the Killers, with lead singer Nathan Willett coming on very much like Brand...

Ah, the 1980's. You know what they say: it wasn't rock and roll's best decade. But that was the decade that I grew up in. People who grew up in the '60's had the Beatles, people who grew up in the '70's had Springsteen, and people who grew up in the '80's had...Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince...I don't even want to keep going down that list! Those were the artists that my friends were listening to while we were coming of age in that era, but I was (and still am) a stubborn lover of rock and roll -- even when it is out of fashion, and even when it is going through a period of qualitative weakness. So, while my friends were listening to that era's dance pop, my FM radio dial immovably stayed tuned in to my local rock and roll stations during the '80's. There was good music that came out of the '80's, but much of it has not aged well. Still, many modern alternative bands show a clear '80's influence, so that decade...