War on Drugs albums

 2008

Wagonwheel Blues - 74%

2011

SLAVE AMBIENT – 93%

      When Slave Ambient hit in 2011, it was needed more than ever. There needed to be a band that combined classic rock with 80’s and 90’s elegance. The main single off the album, “Baby Missiles” sounded exactly like a mix of Paul Simon’s “The Obvious Child” and Neu’s “Hologalo”. The singer recalled both Tom Petty and Bob Dylan, while the band recalled Dire Straits and their most chilled out. That ambient quality though, the one inherited from bands like Stereolab and Jesus and Mary Chain, prevails over the classic rock just enough to make it sound timeless. “I Was There” owes more than a little bit to Rickie Lee Jones; even obscure references come though like Everclear and Band of Susans in certain place. The defining songs- “Best Night”, “Come to the City”, and “Your Love is Calling My Name” achieve a perfect mix of all of the rock innovations of the last 50 years to such a perfect extent that it may turn out that War on Drugs DEFINES the sound of the 2010’s. In fact, if any band does in the 2010s, it is War on Drugs. What is funny is we didn’t even know we needed them.

Greatest Tracks: Your Love Is Calling My Name, Come to the City, Best Night, Black Water Falls

2014

LOST IN THE DREAM – 82%

      The follow up to the brilliant Slave Ambient definitely follows a different path. The songs are longer and get to breathe more and it is more suited to a driving experience. “Under the Pressure” kicks it off and kind of sums up the record: beautiful, ambient, synth heavy, overblown, ambitious. When the songs work like that one works, the record is a gorgeous experience. “An Ocean in the Waves”, “Eyes to the Wind”, “Burning” continue on this path, and it does mix the old (Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Dire Straits, etc.) with the new (Yo La Tengo, Stereolab) in bold ways. Is it overlong and bloated? Well, I don’t really think so. Rather it requires a certain kind of patience that a lot of music does not; it expects you to come down to its level. It makes War on Drugs a unique band in our era: they are not an alternative/indie rock band at all: they are classicist and traditionalist in the best sense of the words.

Greatest Tracks: Under the Pressure, Eyes to the Wind, Burning

2017

A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING – 87%

War on Drugs made a very interesting choice for their 4th lp, in that they did decided to make a true double album: all long, wondering songs that sound similar to each other but when placed side by side create more than the sum of their individual parts. Don’t get me wrong, each song is distinctive enough, but also of a piece and rather homogenous when all heard together. It is one of the few albums in recent memory that I would recommend to listen to perhaps 3 or 4 songs at a time, as each beautiful guitar solo or melody is in the same fashion of the song before, almost combining the ambient aura of their masterpiece, 2011’s Slave Ambient, into the classic rock formula of the bands they love : Tom Petty, Dire Straits, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan.

Opener “Up All Night” has the mix of dance grooves and AOR guitar rock gloss that makes the band a joy to listen to , and the guitar solo is the highlight of the following song “Pain”. “Holding On” would have fit on the last record, but somehow the sound seems more up to date, where as a true breakthrough comes through in the slowcore ballad “Knocked Down”, which mixes ambient laid back atmosphere with power lyrics, “I wanna love you but I get knocked down”. “Thinking of a Place” is their longest song yet at over eleven minutes, and it earns its epic length with the albums best guitar solo yet and proves the band a force to be reckoned with. “In Chains” is perhaps the best track, summing up everything that is great about guitar rock in the late 2010’s.

Some of the tunes are perhaps too long (“Strangest Thing” and “You Don’t Have to Go”) or could have been left off completely (“Nothing to Find” and Clean Living”) but that seems like nitpicking on an album of rare consistency. For its near 70 minute length, this album holds the listeners attention and provides surprises at every turn. Songwriting of this kind is very old fashioned, but also immortal. And credit is due for having an average song length of six and a half minutes!

Greatest Songs: In Chains, Knocked Down, Thinking of a Place, Holding On

2021

I Don’t Live Here Anymore - 80%

I tend to always have a War on Drugs album on my years' end list, because they are simply one of the most consistent bands out there. They wait a couple years between releases until they have songs good enough for an album, and they don't tend to fill the world with a bunch of filler. It's a good tactic, and on their newest one they actually have done even better by trimming it down to a solid, ten song 50 minute listen, which matches their classic 2011’s Slave Ambient almost perfectly. The obvious two singles continue the band’s quest for the perfect road album- “Harmonia’s Dream” is a chugging Jeff Lynne style rocker, that seems to match the optimism of the coffee cup running through the snow on the album's cover as it talks a man who has come to terms with how the world works and is comfortable with his place in it; “I Don’t Live Here Anymore” has a repetitious guitar riff that builds and crescendos into some kind of meaningful movement channeling all of our souls. There is a healing quality to this band’s music.

But at its core the album searches for a kind of inner truth, while exploring a more synth-rock sound then usual. I’m glad the band is evolving; they are a top-notch guitar jam band for sure as evidenced by the last album 2017’s A Deeper Understanding which went on for nearly 80 minutes with the same number of songs as this one. The shimmering synth lines of “Wasted” that recall early 80's New Wave and the odd, wailing keyboard sounds of “Victim” would not have been heard on any other record of theirs, and it’s a welcome change of pace. “Old Skin” starts solemn like so many of lead man Adam Granduciel's tunes as it channels Bob Dylan at his most introspective (also see opener “Living Proof” for a more sparse version of this), but ends of building and maybe having one of the most effecting changes of ANY of their songs as the emotions swell more like Bruce Springsteen. The melding of classic rock influences with modern ones culminates in closer “Occasional Rain” which makes great song writing sound effortless- trust me, it never is. Again, trudging through the snow is a great album cover and metaphor for being the sort of band War on Drugs is, being placed on a pedestal of greatness with every move they make.