Stream: Cold War Kids, ‘Run Away With Me’

on
0
Cold War Kids co-founders Nathan Willett and Matt Maust (Photo by Sean Flynn)

Approaching their 20th anniversary as a band, Cold War Kids have always been a reliable source of earnest, blues-tinted anthems, deviating in recent years to play more to arena-pop tastes.

The latter venue is where you’ll find their new single, “Run Away With Me,” with its shout-along chorus and body-bumping beat. With its release today, the L.A. quintet announce that their 10th full-length, “Cold War Kids,” will be out Nov. 3.

The band says their sonic touchstones for the 12-track collection include Curtis Mayfield, the Pretenders, Elton John, Happy Mondays and Gang Of Four. The new single is the follow-up to June’s “Double Life,” and frontman Nathan Willett says of it, “We started ‘Run Away With Me’ with [producer] Carlos de la Garza (Paramore, the Linda Lindas) as this Sly Stone type of funky soul song that evolved into a more soulful pop tune about two desperate, down-and-out lovers.”

From 2019 to ’21, the band — co-founders Willett and Matt Maust, with David Quon, Matthew Schwartz and Joe Plummer — released a trilogy of eight-song albums, “New Age Norms,” Vols 1-3. The pandemic forced them to take a breather, with Willett spending considerable time envisioning what a Cold War Kids should sound like.

“The band started out with four guys who have very specific tastes and styles, and now it’s mostly me making the records in a way I love and have always envisioned,” Willett says. “The sound of Cold War Kids has always been there, and I wanted this record to be the ideal, best version of all those things we’ve always been.”

||| Stream: “Run Away With Me”

||| Previously: “Double Life,” “Wasted All Night,” “What You Say,” “Somewhere,” “You Already Know,” “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,” “Pine St.,” “Water & Power,” “Loner Phase,” “Miracle Mile,” live at the Bootleg, “Minimum Day,” “Skip the Charades,” “Mine Is Yours”