The War on Drugs - A Deeper Understanding

^^ 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!

I used to like them.but i hate the new album.

I don't really like the band name, but I liked the song "Strangest Thing"
I dig turtles, too.

What's inside a turtle?

understanding juice

I've also spent many years (intermittently, obv) trying to figure this band out -- even played a bunch of shows with him when he was nobody and he seemed like a cool guy but the sets didn't make an impression. It's like a band that started its career in its later-career burnout phase, or maybe more like post-burnout comeback phase where they start to sound pretty good again but a lot of the older musical idiosyncrasies are gone and there's less energy? Yet it's that concept carried so far that it almost becomes interesting again?

He relies a little too much on the same few vocal melody tricks/chord progression ideas. But there's something to be said for just developing a sound and really sticking to it I guess.

Every song sounds like the video should be aerial footage from a seaplane low over the ocean fading into a closeup on the singer's emotively singing face in black and white, just that image sequence repeatedly

A lot of people cite Dylan and Springsteen, but I'm reminded a lot of Bob Seeger doing "Against the Wind," even though it's a bit different both sonicly and in vocal style.

It's like a band that started its career in its later-career burnout phase

I like this band but this is the best and most accurate description of them I have ever heard

It's pretty much how I've described my feeling about Tame Impala as well. The classic rock giants entering their 80's phase.

found the exact visual I was picturing for the videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hr64MxYpgk

like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9LgHNf2Qy0

on paper this band sucks, but i love em unreservedly

they only know one song and i love that song. but i do not like to listen to it ten times in a row in one evening. in other words live they suck.

You mean that song that starts on the IV/ and then it goes to the I
That sounded pretty good man/let's do another one
But I bet you never expected the song to go.../to the V

Saw them last night at The Fox in Oakland. I'm a big fan, but the show was still pretty much a snoozer. They literally brought their entire studio with them. Adam Granduciel had like 50-ish guitar pedals, and there were three different keyboard areas! It all added up to a giant wall of beautiful sound, but there was zero excitement. They also had a beautiful light show, which made up for some of the overly-mellow vibe, but I was waiting all night for some powerful moment that never came.

sounds pretty much like what I imagined

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.

― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Friday, September 22, 2017 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Apparently this album is the epitome of “opposite of a grower” because I was listening to Lost in the Dream earlier today and couldn’t believe WoD hadn’t released an album since 2014... only to find that they released this album in 2017. I have no memory of it - but according to this threat I listened to it, liked it at first and then grew to dislike it. And now I’ve successfully erased it from my mind.

the art of pretend forgetfulness 2007, since i can't find the other thread

according to this threat

good typo, ILX spirit.

Thanks to this thread I do recall now that they released an 11-minute songs as their lead single. But I still don’t remember how it goes.