The War on Drugs

One Liner: Top notch indie rock band with a heavy touch of melancholy and classic rock flourishes

Wikipedia Genre: Indie rock, heartland rock, neo-psychadelia, Americana

Home: Philadelphia

Poster Position: 4!
Both Weekends.  Saturday.

Thoughts:  I just spent a long time trying to find my prior review of this band, which apparently does not exist.  I could have sworn they were here a few years ago, but I have nothing that comes up when I run a search for a full review like I would have done for ACL.  Oh well.

I like this band.  I've been listening to them for a while, and have always enjoyed.  I wonder if I saw them at the 2012 ACL and that is where I first heard their stuff?  I can't recall by now.  

The band started when frontman Adam Granduciel met Kurt Vile in Philly.  Both of them had recently moved to town, and they hooked up and started writing and playing together.  They started playing as War on Drugs in 2005, with the name coming from a friend "over a couple bottles of red wine and a few typewriters when we were living in Oakland."  Granduciel claims it was either that or The Rigatoni Danzas.  

Barrel of Batteries was their 2008 EP debut.  It is very DIY-sounding, raw and unpolished.  Claims to have six songs, but three of those are tiny little ditties that don't amount to squat.  Not an auspicious debut, I would not have kept up with them if that was my first exposure to the band.  Later that year, they released Wagonwheel Blues, which incorporated the three songs from the EP into an album.  Also not great.  After that album, Kurt Vile bailed on them to do his solo stuff (in fact most of the members bailed here).

2010 brought us Future Weather and then 2011 brought along Slave Ambient.  From their cover art, they look related.  Future Weather has a song or two where you can start to hear their angle to become Springsteen-esque, but then by the fourth song it goes back into more of that DIY type sound.  The final too songs are kind of weird stuff that I don't much like.  This isn't the stuff that made me like them later on down the road.  Funny thing is that their Wikipedia doesn't even list Future Weather as existing.  It just says that they put out Slave Ambient in this time.  Slave Ambient is better, but still doesn't get to the level where they will get in a few more years.  The top track on there is called "Baby Missiles," and it was actually on both Future Weather and Slave Ambient.  8.7 million streams.

I don't know if Springsteen ever did anything quite so peppy.  Kind of sounds like Dire Straits' "Walk of Life."  Pretty good.  But I'm telling you, the good stuff is yet to come.  

2014's Lost in the Dream popped up in multiple year-end top album lists that year, and I said: "After one listen, it is really good - sounds like a Ryan Adams album with some Springsteen sax and Cure synth. Wow, no, seriously, after listening again, I'm 90% sure this is a Ryan Adams album. A really good one, but still."  A few days later, I said: "I agree it was good, although after about 10 listens now, I think this may be more David Gray than Ryan Adams.  Either way, it is a really nice album."  Isn't it fun to just rehash what you previously didn't read that I said on this blog?  Super fun.  I should just quote myself all the time.  Anyway, totally sticking by my David Gray comparison.  This is good music that sad, old KGSR is going to play to death to the few people out there who haven't yet figured out that KUTX is the actual sound of Austin.  "Under the Pressure" and "Red Eyes" are both really excellent songs.  Since that time, "Red Eyes" has become his top streamer overall, with 118.3 million streams.

You hear those Cure/Killers synths?  Really a good tune - the driving backbone makes it unstoppable.

A Deeper Understanding si the next album, in 2017.  By now, I start to realize that he not only reminds me of David Gray and Springsteen, but now I also get Bob Dylan vibes - with tunes that sound very much influenced by classic rock.  When I reviewed this album a few years ago, I actually said that I had "reviewed him a few years back when he came to ACL," BUT I CAN'T FIND THAT REVIEW!  WTF man.  This album is generally pretty relaxed, but still rock edged, and I can't shake the thought of Dylan anymore.  The second-most streamed song is an 11 minute long one, so thankfully another tune has overtaken it for the top slot.  This is "Holding On," with 39.7 million streams.

Kicks in like a Springsteen song, with the bells ringing and the music ready to be used on a road trip mixtape immediately.  My God I'm such a softie too, that damn video got me right up to the edge of tearing up over the superintendent from Coming to America losing his wife but having a good day reintroducing himself to his town.  Criminy.  But the tunes are good, a lot of them have that same driving feeling, and I repeatedly think that the organ/ synth is just about to start playing the lick from "Walk of Life."  Good album, I like it all.

And finally, the most recent disc from 2021, I Don't Live Here Anymore.  As I listened to one of the songs on here - "I Don't Wanna Wait" - a great comp dawned on me.  For some people, this will sound like the kiss of death, but as a lover of Bryan Adams from back in the day, I think saying that this sounds like classic Bryan Adams is actually a fine compliment.  That dude could write a great turn of phrase, play the guitar, and craft up a pop rock nugget or three that still sound great today.  And then the rest of the songs sound like Dylan got a backing band who only want to do songs that would be good to drive to.  Which also might sound like an insult, but I don't mean it as one.  I love driving songs.  "Harmonia's Dream" makes me think of Springsteen and the Killers and some never-created 80's band who were never featured on a soundtrack for E.T.  Lots of synth riffage.  I'd really like to see this band live - between this album and that last one I find them to be a great version of rock.  The top track is the title song, and it features nice background vocals from Lucius.  "I Don't Live Here Anymore" has 15.4 million streams.

Between that guitar solo at the start and the synths, you get that immediate 80's feel.  And seeing the singer, it makes me realize that I sometimes mix up this band with Strand of Oaks, and yet they are definitely different bands.  A lot of these songs are sad, or at least feature sadness as part of the lyrics.  That one up above, and even more so, "Victim," makes me sad.  Maybe my mind is trained to remember that 80's sound and think of the things I'm missing from that era, or maybe these songs just really do have some melancholy.  Not sure which, but I'm enjoying the sound.

I'd absolutely go see them play if I have the space.  Which reminds me that I have literally not looked at the schedules yet.  Which is unlike me, but I just haven't gotten around to it.  I am relatively close to finishing up the reviews, with about ten left, and then I can start to be sad about the conflicts.