With sometime band member, collaborator and fellow sonic adventurer Kurt Vile making inroads into popular appeal in the last year, it’s good to see The War on Drugs gaining some critical acclaim of their own with new album “Slave Ambient”. Their previous long-player, “Wagonwheel Blues” had plenty of densely raw roots rock moments, particularly the opening track “Arms Like Boulders” a kind of looping, crashing anthem amalgamating everything likeable in American rock circa 1968 – 1989. Singer Adam Granduciel’s Dylanesque nasal drone worked perfectly across some rough hewn gems, all of which had a canny under-produced/big-heart-lo-fidelity sound.
On “Slave Ambient” the original gameplan has been refined further. With Vile no longer involved on a full time basis and the band effectively down to a trio, TWOD have extended their jammed song feel further. Most of their work is intensely layered, chorus free and hypnotic. Eschewing verse/bridge/chorus structures for a drifting widescreen Americana sound, truly this is music to allow to envelope, rather than to sing along to. Springsteen is often cited as a musical touchstone, perhaps more in the way that the music that taps into both the big American psyche beloved of the boss in his Born to Run moments, and the small town dislocation of his Darkness on the Edge of Town era efforts.
With limited appearances in the UK in the last few years, we’re intrigued to see how the band come across in a live setting. Originally lined up for the Green Door Store, word of mouth has seen this one upsized to the Haunt. Having seen Vile and his Violators deliver an A+ performance at End of the Road earlier this month, we’ve got high hopes for his long time musical brothers delivering their wonderfully dense, layered album in the flesh.
Grab a ticket here
Watch the video for ‘Baby Missiles’ here: http://vimeo.com/channels/secretlyjag#26117149
Watch ‘Come To The City’ here, directed by Peter J. Brant: http://vimeo.com/27019826
Download ‘Come To The City’ here: http://soundcloud.com/dojagsc/come-to-the-city
