Imagine Dylan, Petty or Springsteen covered by My Bloody Valentine and your kind of there with The War on Drugs.
The second album by the Philadelphia based four piece is Americana through and through but drenched in the woozy reverb and fuzz you'd expect from early '90s Brit shoegazing bands like MBV, Ride or Spacemen 3.
Main man Adam Granduciel is blatant about his influences. Vocally he oscillates between a lazy Dylan-esque drawl complete with Bob's unusual inflections (especially on 'Brothers'). Elsewhere on 'I Was There' he sounds like a younger mournful Bruce, bruised and tired, as on the Nebraska album.
At their more upbeat moments the music is propulsive stuff. 'Your Love is Calling My Name' flies along with verve, a mixture of psychedelic lyrics, lolloping drums and gently picked guitar melodies. It segues beautifully into instrumental track 'The Animator', a soft wash of swooning white noise and synthesised echoes reminiscent of the Vangelis score for Blade Runner. It would make a great accompaniment to Roy's melancholy soliloquy to Deckard moments before he dies... "attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... c-beams glitter in the dark... All those moments will be lost in time."
Single 'Baby Missiles' is the most anthemic and Springsteen-like of all the tracks, sounding vaguely like one of the uptempo tracks from the Born In The USA album maybe 'Downbound Train' or 'Dancing in the Dark'. It also has a debt to Arcade Fire tracks like 'No Cars Go' and 'Keep the Car Running', themselves indebted to Bruce.
It truly is an album to enjoy in a full sitting. Each song bleeds seamlessly into the next through a dopey narcotic haze of white noise and reverb. There are points where you forget where you are, which track you're up to. It's part of it's blissful beauty.
As well as a truly great band name, The War On Drugs have huge potential. They more than hold their own musically alongside their similarly ambitious post-rock contemporaries like Arcade Fire and The National. Slave Ambient also had great reviews last year and featured on many end of year lists. Time will tell whether this becomes revered as great American psychedelic art-rock album like those of their competitors. I personally don't feel it will. Hugely enjoyable as it is, it's influences are worn just a little too brazenly.
That said I'm really looking forward to what they do next...
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