The War on Drugs - A Deeper Understanding

i think i liked the idea of this band and some individual songs more than any particular album, but i'm pretty in love with this one

I love the backgroundness of this band in general, it's like ambient rock. And then the guitar solos pop up and pull you back in (sometimes).

this album is good to listen to whilst smoking w33d

The vocals are too loud for me to tune out while drinking, etc.

Like I wrote, this isn't terrible but the mythmaking already going on with this band/Granduciel is absurd and incommensurate with the modest achievements of this album and the last. I know rock is in dire shape on the charts, but The War on Drugs isn't the well in the desert.

I love the backgroundness of this band in general, it's like ambient rock. And then the guitar solos pop up and pull you back in (sometimes).

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, August 27, 2017 7:24 PM (forty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

same

feel like this one is just more... misty and enveloping than the last one. i didn't really pay "thinking of a place" much mind as a single but the way the little like sighing harmonica bits are as magnetic as any of the guitar solos is one of my fav things about the record. "nothing to find" is my shit right now, it's funny that he plays a lick from "ocean in between the waves"

Dire straits was one of the biggest acts on Earth in 1985-1986, maybe the biggest —like huge in continental and Eastern Europe. Yet I do not know of one single noteworthy act that wanted to sound anything like 'em in three decades…until the WoD . It's like no one, not even any alt-country acts, wanted to sound like DS for so long that the one that finally did then became big.

this is very interesting and i've been thinking about it for a bit. this might be the reason that we can't stop talking about who they sound like: because it's a "sound" from the 80s that hasn't been recycled a million times already. the closest similarity i can think of is destroyer's kaputt (and it's probably no coincidence that WoD were the opening act on that tour)

"in chains" is an amazing dylan-bruce hybrid

Dire Straits, and especially Mark Knopfler's guitar playing, might not have influenced much American or European music, but it was strangely influential to the music of West Africa, especially the Tuareg culture that birthed Tinariwen and Bombino

(this prob belongs in another thread, but too interesting not to share: http://africasacountry.com/2015/03/the-unexpected-popularity-of-dire-straits-in-north-african-tuareg-communities/ )

that's fascinating!

yeah, v interesting read!

I always got more Don Henley or Steve Winwood in the 80s from War on Drugs than Dire Straits. Musically, not vocally. Also Dire Straits lyrics are way more narrative than WoD.

Don Henley's late '80s material was often of punishing length too.

You're looking at it all wrong: maybe War on Drugs has been mostly influenced by North African nomadic Tuareg rock all along!

his buddy kurt vile (former drug on warrior) for sure was

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_oUt5Pi9jo

(^ that show slayed)

good grief…this song "disappearing" is way way way WAY all up in Knopfler's steez…

Had this on repeat the last few days while decorating; I still much prefer Lost In The Dream, but it's slowly growing on me.

Does somewhat feel like if the vocal tracks of several of these songs were swapped over, I would struggle to notice the difference ...

the music this draws from hits me in a deeply nostalgic place, really the sounds themselves and i enjoy this band as a child in many ways and therefore understand their ultimate dullness but like them in a way that i'm not inclined to interrogate.

^^this, basically.

I've listened to it three times and I can't remember a single song. It doesn't sound bad tho... I guess it qualifies as ambient rock?

^^ perfectly put (xxpost)

xpost Moka I'd actually been thinking of posting something about them as the classic rock version of trance or ambient stuff

Most of the reviews on rateyourmusic are saying that it's nice music to leave in the background. I found this one funny:

Best New Hold Music
i can't believe the 11 minute song, thinking of a place, was by a decent margin my favorite song on here. i guess poorly written 6 minute songs can feel longer than an 11 minute song.

i liked strangest thing too but, point aside - let's square up about something here. there is no fucking way that any more than 1/4 of the people who attend their concerts know what song they're playing at any given moment if it's not Red Eyes. how the hell would they know? they're trying to force as many songs into the same narrow aesthetics as possible and succeeding quite well at it. i even liked their previous album a bit, but they're clearly not really trying here.

I suppose opinions will vary depending on what you want and classify as good music. There's people who think being bland or unmemorable is more offensive than well, being willfuly tasteless.

i quite liked the album before but this one is totally forgettable, just passing me by without any hooks.

This album is decent, but I feel like they could've gone in a direction a little bit more interesting than ambient rock. Hate to pull the "first album is the BEST" card, but I feel like Wagonwheel Blues (and parts of Slave Ambient) went places they never really came back to. Like, the two sprawling songs on Wagonwheel Blues (There is No Urgency, Show me the Coast), had a little bit more edge and aggressiveness. Both instrumentals on that album were pretty solid as well (by contrast, every instrumental since has been pretty dull, so it's probably for the best he ditched them on this one).

He owes Petty a royalty for Up All Night imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5BJXwNeKsQ

i really, really enjoyed this album. i do sort of agree that it's background music and not really memorable but that's OK.

I was pretty wary of this at first; as the tracks came out I thought he was slipping into parody (if, indeed, he hadn't already). But I've listened a few more time and it's really growing on me. Or maybe it's more accurate to say I'm growing into it. With LITD, it was 'Burning' and 'Eyes to the Wind' that initially affected me, but the (breathing) space of those more ambient later tracks are equally full of steady magic. It's proving the same with the new one: I find myself almost craving the defeat of 'You Don't Have To Go'.

Less poncey version: it's alright this, innit.

I truly love his sound but what a lot of you are saying about this album is how I felt about the previous one (which seemed like a redundant iteration of the classic Slave Ambient). So Im not in a hurry to check this one out.

slave ambient is great, a nice reiteration of the classic wagonwheel blues. he's like the feelies and real estate to me at this point where i want rehashings of that perfect jersey/philly sound forever

You are right, reggie "Slave Ambient" is very good, I just listened to it for the first town. That full 80s sound is there already though I think it is even richer on "Lost in the Dream" which I still prefer. That album reminds me more of shoe-gazing. Live they were quite average on the "Dream" tour I thought. I think in the end I prefer the Kurt Vile guitar sound to their keyboard heavy textures.

Town=time

This album is the opposite of a grower. I seem to like it less and less each time I put it on. Even the songs I initially thought were great are becoming merely good.

i listened through and don't remember a single thing about it

dream pop

The new album is rubbish, I totally agree. But I discovered "Slave Ambient" and it is great. They already have created their dense sound and there are tunes as well. It is almost as good as "Lost in the Dream" whrre they refined the formula I'd say.

'your love is calling my name' is basically perfect, that's about all the WoD i need

Cutting 25 minutes out of it would be a start. Doesn't need to be 66 minutes long.

In Chains is an amazing song for knocking out the last mile of a punishing summertime run, right up there among classics of the genre like Edge of Seventeen

Hate to pull the "first album is the BEST" card, but I feel like Wagonwheel Blues (and parts of Slave Ambient) went places they never really came back to.

Yes!

Saw them play last night in Austin, it was a pretty great show! They played as many songs from Lost in the Dream as from A Deeper Understanding. I was hoping they'd take a song like Pain or In Chains and stretch it out a bunch... they only really seemed to get loose with Under the Pressure. But they definitely aren't playing the same set night after night... I stuck around because people said the night before they played Thinking of a Place as the encore, but at my show they did a cover of Tangled Up in Blue!

wow, was it good?

i enjoy this band as a child in many ways and therefore understand their ultimate dullness but like them in a way that i'm not inclined to interrogate.

the line

"I resist what I cannot change" seems kind of banal yet deep, it really resonates w/me for some reason

The Dylan cover was pretty good, yeah! I'm not too familiar with the original, but TWOD version was pretty rollicking. Apparently in the past they've covered Jethro Tull? Would have liked to have heard that.

i swear i can't figure out if this band is kinda bland or incomparably brilliant, but i think it's one or the other, no in between

maybe that's the magic?

i have the same problem as you, alpine static. i think they have their moments of brilliance. the problem being they try to extend those moments to minutes and than it all becomes pretty dull.

saw them live a couple of weeks ago. The stuff off Lost in the Dream was fantastic, the rest... not so much.

I was staggered that they were playing two nights at the Apollo in Manchester. I've seen New Order play there!