Hifi Riff Raff spent years as a Seattle cover band under the name Euphoria before deciding this year to put their own name on original material, and The Cool Kids is the result. The lineup leans on real road experience; lead guitarist Matt Haller has gigged alongside members of Heart and Bad Company, with Aaron Kimball and Dave Maragno locking in the rhythm section while Jeff Hill splits guitar, keys, and vocal duties with Haller. This EP sounds like a bunch of older, talented gentlemen just having a real good time, and that’s meant entirely as a compliment. It plays like a jam, loose in the best sense, with every instrument feeling real and tangible rather than assembled after the fact.
Opener “Rock Is Dead” sets that tone early, a rebellious clap-back at anyone who’s written the genre off, powered by Bill Zielinski’s raw lead vocal and functioning as a genuine warning shot rather than a nostalgia exercise. “My People” shifts into a lighter, funkier gear, closer to the Rolling Stones’ Harlem Shuffle era, and carries a wry, humorous take on just being sentient dust riding this thing out together. “Detour” turns pop-punk, telling the story of a teen mother forced to build her own path against an uncaring world, giving the EP its most pointed emotional turn.
Then there are the covers, and this is where the record really earns its personality. My personal favorite here is their take on “Come Together.” They do the Beatles’ original real justice while still making it sound like their own version, filtered through their own melodic and rhythmic sensibility rather than replicated note for note. “Moonshiner” closes things out with an equally confident reinterpretation, pushing the old Dylan folk standard, also famously covered by Uncle Tupelo, into harder, more dynamic territory, with extended instrumental stretches that give Jeff Hill’s gritty Danelectro slide work plenty of room to breathe.
For a first release under a new name, The Cool Kids doesn’t sound tentative in the slightest. It sounds like a band that already knew exactly who they were as players and just needed the right vehicle to say so under their own name. Between the originals and the covers, there’s a real sense of a band figuring out its identity in real time and enjoying every second of it, which makes the whole EP a genuinely fun, live-feeling listen from start to finish.
Stream The Cool Kids HERE
