re: New The War on Drugs album and single

Just two more days. I’m still avoiding the singles, but this review has pretty hyped about the album.

Stereogum review

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I Don’t Live Here Anymore is essentially the exact album I hoped Granduciel would make after the last two. Much has already been made of the idea that, after years of Granduciel dubiously trying to refute his perfectionist reputation even as he released albums as meticulous as A Deeper Understanding, I Don’t Live Here Anymore is a looser record. It is, in some ways — raw and fleeter of foot compared to its predecessor. But Granduciel still crams a ton of ideas into these songs, it’s just that he’s streamlined and compacted it all. The result is Drugs music that is synthier, brighter, punchier. It feels like a marriage of the earlier albums’ ranginess and the later albums’ impeccable atmospheres, a summation and a new chapter all at once.

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As a result, pretty much everything on this album hits — and, save the title track, I Don’t Live Here Anymore’s pre-release singles have done little to prepare you for it. As soon as the prologue of “Living Proof” concludes, I Don’t Live Here Anymore fires off into the sky.

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At this point, the War On Drugs have not made a bad album. You could probably find fans who would argue for each and every one of them as their favorite: some contrarian out there preferring the washed-out rough draft of Wagonwheel Blues, those in thrall of Slave Ambient’s kaleidoscopic loops, everyone who got onboard with the watercolor and grain of Lost In The Dream, those who saw A Deeper Understanding as a peak and culmination. I will tell you where I’m at: I often held that soft spot for Slave Ambient, but Lost In The Dream became an incredibly important album to me. I respected A Deeper Understanding and mostly regarded it as Granduciel’s best work front to back, even if I couldn’t find a way to engage with it on the same level myself. I’ve been a fan of this band a long time, and they have made some of my favorite new music of my lifetime. And from where I’m standing right now, having carried I Don’t Live Here Anymore with me — for months, across I don’t know how many states and thousands of miles on the road — it sounds like their best album to me.

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