Cold War Kids

California band Cold War Kids’ bluesy Velvet Underground lean brewed up a good bit of buzz in the mid-’00s, but the band went beyond that with 2008’s Loyalty To Loyalty. Its sophomore album took on bigger matters (such as Ayn Rand’s theories on individualism and the contemplation of suicide) that signal a band trying to go deeper and darker the second time around, but the ideas and melodies are neatly entwined. The long-awaited follow-up, Mine Is Yours, lost much of the earlier albums’ edge, as slopped-on studio sheen seemingly aspires for middlebrow modern-rock radio.

Updated 03/14/2011