Maybe it's just the band's name, but looking at the Cold War Kids' list of influences (Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday and the Velvet Underground) on their MySpace.com page brings to mind North Korea's crashing of the nuclear party.
There had to be some old-time Cold War holdover in the Pentagon pining for the good old days of constant nuclear threat, but even a FOX News analyst could tell you that, with a nuclear bomb equivalent to a large firecracker and a leader that looks more ridiculous in real life than he does in "Team America," North Korea isn't exactly the ominous '50s-era USSR.
The current blogosphere flavor of the week, Cold War Kids, are to their influences what North Korea is to the real Cold War: laughably delusional pretenders.
One listen to their debut album "Robbers and Cowards," released on Oct. 10, and these claims become as incongruous as "We'll Meet Again" played over the montage of atomic blasts that ends "Dr. Strangelove."
These assertions of their musical lineage make you question whether or not the band actually listened to their music of their so-called influences, or if they just picked names out of a hat that they thought would reflect good taste on their part.
The two contemporary bands that Cold War Kids do owe a large debt to are the White Stripes and Spoon.
Lead singer Nathan Willett often steals Jack White's bluesy, oddly accented howl that was especially prevalent on the Stripes' first two albums, while the band tries to emulate Spoon's rhythmically propulsive pop-rock.
The Cold War Kids fail in both attempts. Willett's voice lacks the power to command a song like White, and the band seems unaware that, for a pop-rock song be successful, it must have a hook to make it memorable.
Cold War Kids only succeed in integrating their mimicry on "Hang Me Up to Dry" and "Saint John." Both songs owe a great deal to their bassist, who seems to have stumbled across two decent hooks, despite his best attempts to do otherwise.
"Hang Me Up to Dry" suffers a bit from "The OC" disorder of pleasant, but bland indie rock.
"Saint John" is probably the closest the band comes to achieving the Spoon-covering-the-White Stripes sound that they are striving for.
It's a standard blues tune about sitting on death row that works really well with the minimal drums/tambourine and slick bass line.
With the 10 other songs on the album, the band's formula fails to even scratch the surface of the listener's conscious.
The problems that plague "Hospital Beds," which has been inexplicably praised online, can be found throughout the album.
For the first 30 seconds, this actually seems like a very good song. Willett finally has an authority in his voice, and the pulsing bass and delicate piano chords do a very good job of complementing each other.
Despite its promising start, the song goes nowhere. It turns into a drawn-out dirge with a barely existent chorus. Throughout the album, Cold War Kids seem to think that they can stretch a small sketch of a song for four minutes. The results are a set of songs that become instantly and utterly forgettable after their one-minute mark.
Cold War Kids seemed to name their album all too honestly, because "Robbers and Cowards" are exactly what they are. It is easy to peg them as robbers with their rampant pilfering from superior bands.
To call them cowards is not quite as simple: They may strike out, but at least they did so while swinging for the fences.
Their ambition and drive to be an important band is palpable under the surface of the lackluster songs.
They are cowards, because they are unsure of who they are as a band and unable to craft their own identity, preferring to hide behind their influences in the hope that some of the glory rubs off on them.
Imagining Cold War Kids roving across the country supporting this album seems a strange mirror image to Kim Jong Il waving to his "adoring" crowds.
Both have their chests puffed out, thinking they have what it takes to become great - but in the end, they just don't know how ridiculous this all really makes them look.
