Staff Reviews

Department Of Eagles - The Cold Nose (reissue)

Review by Dan Lucas

Yes it’s flawed, but as freshman records go, this is an exciting template for a career of overwhelming prettiness.»

Buy now from:

originally released in november 2005, the brilliant debut lp gets a re-release on its original home, melodic. 'the cold nose' comes bundled with 6 tracks of previously unreleased material, including demo versions and remixes from the likes of tunng and daedelus. 'the cold nose' was the only album in 2005 with beats even smarter than dj shadow's. a bold statement we know, but more than that the songs make your spine tingle yet rock like the pixies with some added noodletronics to make the four tet kid 606 manitoba types sit up and take note. department of eagles are a pair of 23-year olds who conduct their operations from brooklyn, nyc. once roommates and college pals, daniel rossen (vocals and guitars) and fred nicolaus (beats and samples) are the dynamic duo and they have been pouring together ideas for years now. each partner adds something different to the pot. fred is responsible for, perhaps the more squirrelly stuff like '40 dollar' or 'horse you ride', dan's keen ear for melody and no-fat approach to songwriting yielding the more 'complete' moments like 'sailing by night' and 'ghost in summer clothes'. this a companion piece to two contrasting albums: 'kid a' and the avalanches 'since i left you'. the album sounds like a mix tape with a strong production by jeff saltzman. on melodic.
description from www.roughtrade.com