Cold War Kids - Mine Is Yours (2011)

Cold War Kids has returned on their third album as a band that sounds closer to Train than the raw passion of their former selves exemplified on Robbers & Cowards. Now on Interscope, Cold War Kids suffer from over-production and under-enthusiasm, tell-tale signs of what is now the all-too-familiar Big Label Curse. Robbers & Cowards was a unique, fearless album that took a mish-mash of intriguing influences and churned them together to create something previously undiscovered. I won't lament. Mine Is Yours, in stark contrast, does the best it can to sound so... regular. Nathan Willett can still let loose with his impressive, identifiable voice, and does so on occasion, but when it is used to sing the rather insipid and empty choruses of "Finally Begin" and "Louder Than Ever," it is wasted. Instead of doing something interesting, five minutes of album space is stolen from the listener in the form of the Keane tribute track "Bulldozer." The attitude and artistry is gone, as I wrote here a few years back, which is too bad because from what I can tell and have heard, they are cool dudes who put on a great live show. Unfortunately, the music off of Mine Is Yours is obviously geared for ears other than mine.

My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges (2008)

Wow. I still don't really know what to make of this one. Suffice to say MMJ are branching out and trying out some genre experiments. Maybe they were just getting bored. You almost have to approach this album by asking yourself if another band came out with this would you like it? There are some great songs ("Remnants" and "Aluminum Park") and some flops. "Highly Suspicious" is just weird. In general, I like the songs where they rock out. Their take on 60's pop, 70's soft rock and 80's synth pop are fine, but rather uninteresting. And it makes for a lot of mediocre mid-tempo pop songs. As a fan of their last few albums, I was really looking forward to this one, but unfortunately I'm underwhelmed. Maybe it's a grower.