Providence, RI - Mayor Angel Taveras, the Department of Art, Culture + Tourism and 95.5 WBRU are pleased to announce a performance by The Cold War Kids on July 12 as part of this summer's Friday Night Concert Series at Waterplace Park. This performance is free and open to the public and begins at 7:30pm.
Since their modest beginnings as four guys who drove around Southern California with their gear in their cars, practicing wherever they could steal a space, Cold War Kids have always exhibited two qualities in their music: intense passion and emotional truth.
Lithe and percussive, roaring and tuneful, the soulful punk on the Long Beach quartet's first two albums "Robbers & Cowards" (2006) and "Loyalty to Loyalty" (2008) emerged like miniature gothic novels. Singer Nathan Willett channeled taut dramas of men on the edge, families in peril, and crises of faith. The musical literature of these four tight-knit friends -- Willett, Jonnie Russell, Matt Maust and Matt Aveiro -- was a sound that augured something bigger, something more universal.
That "something" arrived in "Mine Is Yours," the quartet's third, and by far most intimate, album. It was a collection of songs dealing with the push and pull of human relationships, the glue that holds them together, and the equilibrium they sometimes find. It found the foursome at their most sonically potent, and Willett at his most revealing and vulnerable.
Their current album, Dear Miss Lonelyhearts, which features the rollicking, energetic single "Miracle Mile," is Cold War Kids' first release with former Modest Mouse and Murder City Devils guitarist Dann Gallucci, who also handled its production alongside Lars Stalfors.
"We were shaken up, ready to let certain songs go further than before by trying new styles and arrangements, while keeping others sparse and caring more about the finished product and less about how we got there," explains Willet about the ten-track album, which was recorded at the band's private studio in San Pedro, CA.
The Friday Night Concert Series at Waterplace Park is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the City of Providence, Angel Taveras, Mayor, Department of Art, Culture + Tourism, Department of Parks & Recreation, 95.5 WBRU, Dunkin Donuts, The Providence Phoenix and Narragansett Beer.