The War On Drugs 5th album is a sprawling, yet refined opus that’s deserving of massive arenas
The War On Drugs release a fine-tuned project that feels familiar and comforting, but also knows when and where to take chances.
Produced by: Adam Granduciel and Shawn Everett
It’s been a long time coming. Four years actually since the last The War on Drugs studio album. But Adam Granduciel and company haven’t been taking it easy. Quite the opposite. They’ve been meticulously dialing in on their lyrics and sound. And their latest release, I Don’t Live Here Anymore is the result. It’s a fine-tuned project that feels familiar and comforting but also knows when and where to take chances.
Adam and the guys come into this album with high expectations. Their last album won a Grammy Award for the Best Rock Album. That album, 2017’s A Deeper Understanding was a fascinating project that saw Granduciel take a hermetic approach to his album creation. At the time comparisons to Springsteen and Dylan were commonplace. Now with the pandemic forcing them to isolate the band seized the rare opportunity in front of them to take their time and craft a pristine work of art.
There’s a certain comfort in the 52-minute soundscape… A familiarity within the walls of I Don’t Live Here Anymore. Like the listener is spending some time with an old friend they haven’t seen in a while. But in it, there’s also a newness. This isn’t your older brother’s Drugs. It’s an album that leans more on synths than previously. And Adam’s voice is sharper too. More distinct. And more legible throughout. He never over exaggerates. And we could not find a moment where he is reaching. He always seems to stay in his pocket. Take a track like ‘I Don’t Live Here Anymore (feat. Lucius)’. In this song, you can hear how Adam has perfected that “Dylan-esque” inflection drop at the end of his lyric. He’s studied Dylan, and it shows.
I Don’t Live Here Anymore is a sprawling, yet refined opus that’s deserving of massive arenas. Stop what you’re doing and give it your full attention. Once you do, you’ll understand why we have added it to our best new music collection.
I Don’t Live Here Anymore is out today, October 29 via Atlantic.
8.8
More music reviews from the team at The Daily Music Report can be found here.