Stream: Cold War Kids, ‘You Already Know’

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Cold War Kids (Photo by Allen Alcantara)

Cold War Kids have announced an Aug. 21 release date for “New Age Norms 2,” their eighth album and the second in a trilogy of records they started last November.

“The energy of this record is spontaneous, raw, soulful, chaotic,” frontman Nathan Willett says. “Just how we felt making it. It feels true and urgent. It feels modern and classic. I think it’s the best record Cold War Kids has ever made.”

That’s saying something, considering the quintet’s album lineage, which dates to 2006. Like “New Age Norms 1,” the new album was produced by Lars Stalfors (St. Vincent, HEALTH, Foster the People). All five members of the band — Willett, Matt Maust, David Quon, Matthew Schwartz and Joe Plummer — are credited with the writing.

The new single, “You Already Know,” claws and scratches its way insistently through 4 1/2 minutes, sounding the Stones in a fever dream. “If you want it / you can have it / Come and get it / you already know,” Willett declares.

Also, this Cold War Kids footnote: Broadcast Data Systems has noted that “First,” released on the band’s 2014 album “Hold My Home,” was the most-played song on alternative radio outlets during the entirety of the last decade. The previous decade’s top song? The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.”

||| Stream: “You Already Know”

||| Previously: “Who’s Gonna Love Me Now,” “1 x 1,” live at the Novo, live at Made in LA, live at FivePoint Amphitheatre, “Love Is Mystical,” live at Sound in Focus, “One Song at a Time,” live at the Regent Theater, “All This Could Be Yours”