By the time
Cold War Kids released
This Will All Blow Over in Time, they'd transformed themselves from quirky blues-punkers into a straight-ahead, chart-friendly band: The stomping, anthemic "First," which closes the compilation, topped the Billboard Alternative Songs chart in 2015, while their Capitol Records debut,
L.A. Divine, reached number ten on Billboard's Top Rock Albums chart. As it gathers highlights from the five albums they released for their previous label Downtown Records and rarities,
This Will All Blow Over in Time traces the band's evolution. In retrospect, it's easy to hear how
Cold War Kids channeled the passion of their beginnings into stadium-ready rock. Even their earliest songs, such as the three tracks from their 2006 debut album
Robbers & Cowards that appear here ("Hang Me Up to Dry," "Hospital Beds" and "We Used to Vacation"), boast the striding melodies and easy confidence that they blew up to epic proportions on "Miracle Mile" a few albums later. The collection gives equal time to gritty tracks like "Something Is Not Right with Me," slinky grooves such as "Royal Blue," and the soulful pop of "Audience of One" (from the 2010 EP
Behave Yourself), reaffirming that the band's sizable bag of tricks played a large part in their longevity. Meanwhile, the second half of
This Will All Blow Over in Time digs deeper into the band's eclectic side, gathering a cover of
Nick Cave's "Opium Tea" and "Minimum Mistake," a dub-inspired reworking of "Minimum Day" produced by the late
Richard Swift, alongside several tracks from the band's 2005 debut EP Mulberry Street. Though compilations like this were something of a rarity when
This Will All Blow Over in Time was released in 2018, this is a well-curated collection of the band's rockers, ballads, anthems and quirkier moments that proves
Cold War Kids didn't sacrifice any of their personality to achieve their success. ~ Heather Phares