QRTR Track Of The Week #6

With a career to date that boast 450 million streams, over 600,000 albums, and 2 million singles sold, Cold War Kids are back with brand new music. Complainer is the first taster of the upcoming album NEW AGE NORMS.

Over their career, Cold War Kids have fielded music’s seismic shifts while simultaneously sticking to their own game plan. Over the course of a dozen releases – including seven studio albums, multiple EPs, and 2017’s live collection, Nathan Willett and his band have become a major part of the modern landscape.

“Complainer,” the first song written for NEW AGE NORMS, is a call to transcend and do something constructive rather than dwell on all the things that might drag us down, its message inspired Willett throughout the recording process. 

“For me, the songs are always the most important piece of Cold War Kids,” Willett says. “And in them, having a strong message and maintaining a positive energy and output—and not just rage and conflict—is so important, and what can set us apart. But at the same time, we’re doing an old thing: rock ‘n’ roll! I don’t want to completely intellectualize it, because we don’t have this liberal, politically correct agenda. We set out to make a rock and roll record. But, the person that I am, the band that we are, the values that we have are in these songs. They’re not tropes of rock and roll urges; they’re in pursuit of a new value, a better world. And it’s not so clear cut what those are, but these are the new age norms.”