I stand by my Dylan joins 90s Pink Floyd
― Universal LULU Nation (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 25 August 2017 15:30 (six years ago) link
90s floyd didn't groove like this unfortunately
― reggie (qualmsley), Friday, 25 August 2017 16:01 (six years ago) link
The band chose an apt name: like most drugs, they're fine in moderation.
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 25 August 2017 16:02 (six years ago) link
That's what Dylan brought to Pink Floyd.
In seriousness, the Pitchfork article on their roots in heartland synth is pretty otm.
― Universal LULU Nation (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 25 August 2017 17:09 (six years ago) link
Reminds me of Street Fighting Years by Simple Minds.
― DJI, Friday, 25 August 2017 17:17 (six years ago) link
vocally, granduciel has always reminded me of Petty's vocal on The Waiting if he sang exactly like that on every song
― rock and roll tucci coo (voodoo chili), Friday, 25 August 2017 17:55 (six years ago) link
I was impressed by the NPR interview this morning, not the gist of it, per se, but WoD guy himself. I was expecting some mumbly indie dude but he seemed really upbeat and relaxed and happy to be there. Good for him, I say.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 25 August 2017 22:17 (six years ago) link
don't quite understand the guy getting defined as some sort of perfectionist
fwiw, acquaintance of mine who played on this album says Adam "slaved & bled over this album"
― Uhura Mazda (lukas), Saturday, 26 August 2017 00:06 (six years ago) link
i mean that's the sort of thing you might hear about any album, but i believe him
around the time they released 'lost in the dream', granduciel said he wasn't even sure he had another album in him. so for an album that may not have even happened, this is really something else. the album is balanced much better LITD, whose back half i always found boring, despite liking all of the songs. i don't think it has a song as good as 'red eyes' but there are for sure a number of POX GOAT jams on it. 'nothing to find' might be the most war on drugs song ever, they even quote a guitar riff from the last album on it.
LITD took a few years to sink in for me but this one has me right out of the gate
― just another (diamonddave85), Saturday, 26 August 2017 15:50 (six years ago) link
also refreshing to have a critically acclaimed rock band in 2017 who appreciates the emotional power of a guitar solo
― just another (diamonddave85), Saturday, 26 August 2017 15:53 (six years ago) link
It's all very Musician-magazine-tries-to-grapple-with-the-end-of-the-eighties-core. And some may like that.
― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 26 August 2017 17:16 (six years ago) link
It took an Argentine restaurant for me to accept Lost in a Dream.
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 26 August 2017 18:48 (six years ago) link
i'm just glad someone who's meandered all the way into the androgyne world of indie has come out the other side with an (i think) more examined reflection on masculinity in 2017
― austinb, Saturday, 26 August 2017 21:07 (six years ago) link
i don't know if/don't think that adam granduciel is queer, but at the risk of overlaying identity signification this feels just queered enough to poke at what masculinity means without being overtly femme, which i kind of really appreciate
― austinb, Saturday, 26 August 2017 21:08 (six years ago) link
this album is so lush, I think it could probably make trees grow faster and flowers bloom.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Sunday, 27 August 2017 01:21 (six years ago) link
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. I know a lotta old guys (the Musician mag cohort indeed) and guys around my age who like respectable 80s AOR who do backflips for this band.
― veronica moser, Sunday, 27 August 2017 02:11 (six years ago) link
otm
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 27 August 2017 03:27 (six years ago) link
In Chains is so great!
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Sunday, 27 August 2017 05:26 (six years ago) link
Isn't the most obvious reference Springsteen? Everytime I hear one of his songs I start thinking I'd rather listen to Springsteen instead.
the album is great but he could edit half of the songs, most of the time they just go by without groove or doing anything interesting.
― dance cum rituals (Moka), Sunday, 27 August 2017 08:42 (six years ago) link
saw them live where they channelled Bruce much more than on record
― niels, Sunday, 27 August 2017 09:15 (six years ago) link
So how can it be great?
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 27 August 2017 11:17 (six years ago) link
Ok maybe great is too strong a word heh... I mean it's produced in a way that everything sounds "lush" and wjen the songd finally settle they are good but then they start meandering... I don't think he does anything special with his arrangements in the non-vocals bits and he doesn't seem how to end a song, he just starts piling up sounds until the song exhausts itself. The shortest song in here is 4mins long but most of them are well over the 6min mark and it becomes a bit of a chore. Take Dan Bejar/Destroyer as a counter-argument on how to do 6min+ songs right.
― dance cum rituals (Moka), Sunday, 27 August 2017 12:53 (six years ago) link
When it's good it's good and when it's bad it isn't offensively bad it's just a bit boring but it's produced in a way that's easy to leave in the background without being annoying.
― dance cum rituals (Moka), Sunday, 27 August 2017 13:07 (six years ago) link
this is how i felt about the back half of LITD and i think this impulse is reigned in and streamlined on the new one
because they're a jammy rock band where being concise is beside the point?
― just another (diamonddave85), Sunday, 27 August 2017 14:58 (six years ago) link
strawberry or guava?
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 27 August 2017 15:04 (six years ago) link
I was talking to Moka, by the way, who listed several flaws that would detract from an album's greatness. If he thinks it's merely "good," that's fine.
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 27 August 2017 15:05 (six years ago) link
i know, i was giving a possible explanation on how it could still be considered great given his critiques
― just another (diamonddave85), Sunday, 27 August 2017 15:13 (six years ago) link
alfred there are lots of unhappy campers in the comment section below your review :(
― reggie (qualmsley), Sunday, 27 August 2017 15:45 (six years ago) link
Well, again, it's not a bad album by design, imho. The good outweighs the bad, and the bad is not terrible...also it doesn't feel like the songs are needlessly long because the artist is presenting them as self-important ambitious epics (eg: Oasis), I imagine it's more like he just doesn't know when to stop... maybe a byproduct of his live performances?
The potential is there though, if he ever learns to trim down the fat or do something more iwith those instrumental passages.
― dance cum rituals (Moka), Sunday, 27 August 2017 16:21 (six years ago) link
I cant tell by your review if you hated the album or not Alfred haha... it seems like we're on the same page.
― dance cum rituals (Moka), Sunday, 27 August 2017 16:35 (six years ago) link
Three super solid and super hooky tracks (2-4) and the rest is pretty good if not a bit samey (as people have mentioned). It reminds a bit of 'Bloom' by Beach House where the group's current sound has been realized to its maximum potential but another one like it would start to wear on me.
I don't mind the long bits as it's usually hauling off on a section I really enjoy.
― yesca, Sunday, 27 August 2017 20:50 (six years ago) link
i like it so far
― gbx, Sunday, 27 August 2017 21:52 (six years ago) link
the guitar tone at the end of "Pain", that's what i'm here for
― ciderpress, Sunday, 27 August 2017 23:17 (six years ago) link
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
― J0rdan S., Sunday, 27 August 2017 23:57 (six years ago) link
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, Monday, 28 August 2017 00:24 (six years ago) link
this album is good to listen to whilst smoking w33d
― k3vin k., Monday, 28 August 2017 00:28 (six years ago) link
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.
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 28 August 2017 00:34 (six years ago) link
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, August 27, 2017 7:24 PM (forty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
same
― gbx, Monday, 28 August 2017 01:11 (six years ago) link
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"
― J0rdan S., Monday, 28 August 2017 02:01 (six years ago) link
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)
― just another (diamonddave85), Monday, 28 August 2017 02:13 (six years ago) link
"in chains" is an amazing dylan-bruce hybrid
― k3vin k., Monday, 28 August 2017 03:05 (six years ago) link
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/ )
― rock and roll tucci coo (voodoo chili), Monday, 28 August 2017 12:20 (six years ago) link
that's fascinating!
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 28 August 2017 12:23 (six years ago) link
yeah, v interesting read!
― niels, Monday, 28 August 2017 13:38 (six years ago) link
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.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Monday, 28 August 2017 14:01 (six years ago) link
Don Henley's late '80s material was often of punishing length too.
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 28 August 2017 14:06 (six years ago) link
You're looking at it all wrong: maybe War on Drugs has been mostly influenced by North African nomadic Tuareg rock all along!
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 28 August 2017 14:25 (six years ago) link
his buddy kurt vile (former drug on warrior) for sure was
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_oUt5Pi9jo
(^ that show slayed)
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 28 August 2017 14:36 (six years ago) link
good grief…this song "disappearing" is way way way WAY all up in Knopfler's steez…
― veronica moser, Tuesday, 29 August 2017 13:50 (six years ago) link
J0rdan S otm
― brimstead, Sunday, 13 December 2020 17:52 (three years ago) link
thinking of a place is still the best song
― ciderpress, Sunday, 13 December 2020 21:11 (three years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qKCDJAFkWo
― xzanfar, Monday, 14 December 2020 04:06 (three years ago) link
they might be a band which, jeez you'd maybe have to go back to the 70s? whose best album is a live albuma little premature to say that obv but I really really like the live album so far
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 14 December 2020 04:08 (three years ago) link
Oh I guess Phish maybe? you'd have to ask a fan, I don't know that much about them
the 4 part podcast about 2020 + the live album (4 x 25 minutes, approx) is pretty interesting & enjoyable: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-super-high-quality-podcast/id1538505374
― StanM, Sunday, 20 December 2020 14:09 (three years ago) link
a longer podcast episode on the making of Lost In The Dream https://www.buzzsprout.com/1346161/14687088-lost-in-the-dream-10th-anniversary
― StanM, Sunday, 7 April 2024 17:15 (three weeks ago) link