War on Drugs, The - Wagonwheel Blues (Album)
Another stealth nugget here on the Secretly Canadian label; home to Magnolia Electric Company, Antony & the Johnsons and Richard Swift among others. So, in terms of rock bands and not the political slogan, who the hell is The War on Drugs? They’re mainly Adam Granduciel, with a bloke called Kurt Vile and some other names that may not ring many bells, but that’s probably not as important as whether or not this is actually good. I would have to say that it’s not every day you can really enjoy a new album of nine tracks when one of them is over nine minutes long and two are instrumentals, but this is that rare lucky day.
The harmonica-stitched, hippy rebel vocals on opening track Arms Like Boulders already has a few scribes proclaiming The War on Drugs are akin to Bob Dylan on speed, but if you instead play second track Taking the Farm first, you’d wholeheartedly swear otherwise and if like me, be ever grateful you made the switch. Indeed, the terrain here is wholly straight up no bullshit psych folk. If there were any BS here though, it’s been absorbed by the bigger picture – one that is hand-manufactured and partially tie-dyed. It’s an image suggesting a euphoric Neil Young tripping with Turin Brakes and occasionally wearing My Morning Jacket, with a few lightly Spiritualized organ licks from the Stereolab. Throw in a drop of MGMT for currency’s sake and that pretty much covers the “sounds-like” part of this indie Frankenstein.
After a few more spins of The War’s Wagonwheel Blues on your own terms, be it as is or perhaps track by selective track, it appears The War on Drugs is the best, most necessary one since Star Wars.
