Cold War Kids

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• Nathan Willett

Members of the rock intelligentsia both love and hate these Kids, who headline at the Boulder Theater on Friday, October 3 — and the trio's latest is a divider, not a uniter, too. On the positive tip, guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Nathan Willett remains a fiercely intelligent storyteller, as he proves in "Every Valley Is Not a Lake," which brims with grandmotherly wisdom such as "Use your wits, child, 'cause nothing stays the same." But Willett's keening yelp can be irritating at times (mark his repeated "Welcome to the Occupation" claim that "The devil's in the details!" as exhibit A), and the band's sound draws a bit too heavily from the bluesy indie lexicon many others employ. The results are always interesting but only intermittently compelling — promising to some, threatening to others.