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Album Review

The War on Drugs
Slave Ambient Secretly Canadian

Article written by Peter W - Oct 24, 2011

Dusty freeways, stormy roads, cruising to harbours, rolling down rivers, coming home to love, leaving town with love, or just “driftin” – skip to any section of this record and you’ll be detained in the American-Wilderness school of lyrical clichés; furthermore, these words and images are given an extra coating of prairie dust courtesy of Adam Granduciel and his Dylanesque inflections.

However, not everything here is an obsession with this particular strand of Americana, and those elements present aren’t desperate stabs at ‘authenticity’ either. Like their 2008 debut, The War on Drugs attempt to blend the ramblings of a pseudo-frontiersman with a psychedelic haze and 80s-tinged rock; if anything, this sequel combines these genres even more successfully.

The guitars almost never lead; instead they either glide along with the melody or strum up an atmosphere upon which the keyboards & drums can take charge; thus ‘Come to the City’ builds swiftly into an industrial beast and the propulsive ‘Baby Missiles’, with its simple but catchy synth-riff, verges on pop. The standout track is undoubtedly ‘Your Love is Calling My Name’ - an uplifting, six-minute slab of Krautrock.

There’s the occasional lapse into cheesy, drive-time radio, territory (the horrid ‘It’s Your Destiny’ should cause alarm merely by its title) but for the most part, this is a terrific and absorbing album.

Nostalgic, dreamy, and a real pleasure.

Links:
http://www.thewarondrugs.net/
http://www.secretlycanadian.com/