General Interest Review 000013

The War on Drugs (band)

The War on Drugs are a Philadelphia-based rock band with one album under their belt on the independent record label Secretly Canadian. That means they have okay distribution, and that their record is available at that cool record store in town where all the snobs work. The War on Drugs' sound is sort of like the political war on drugs. Two disparate elements that were never really thought as working together coalesce to make a relatively fresh sound. Instead of war and drugs -- never thought to be paralleled because it would be hard for a human army with tanks and bombs to systematically dismantle opiates and narcotics -- the band synthesizes that transporting, dreamy sound created with a lot of organs and effects pedals, and terse, tart, over-it lyrics and vocals in the vein of one Bob Dylan circa mid-60s. The rambling vocal thing has been done over noise before, but never with such a blatant Dylan impression and floating-in-an-ocean sound so closely intertwined.

It's a good idea given the ancestral connection between the 80s noizies and Dylan. And, on wax, it works out about right. The howling blues-rock-honky-tonk band that backed Dylan's trochaic tirades during that period was the obvious choice at the time. The expressive power of the music alone conveys respect for the past, and a willingness to kick it all to the curb somehow at the same time. But the feeling of the music matches up with the words part pretty well here too. Seething. Adrift. Trying to lull the chip on your shoulder like a snake charmer. That kind of thing. And the ambling nature of the lyrics means nothing seems out of place when a little reverb forces a note to trail off the beat. The whole thing makes me ready to see Spacemen 3 back Dylan, but for now I'll take what I can get from these inspired guys.