CD Reviews

The War on Drugs | Slave Ambient

Secretly Canadian (2011)

By JONATHAN DONALDSON | August 9, 2011

2.5 Stars

Sometimes the addition or removal of certain ingredients can make all the difference to a band. The War on Drugs were formerly the side project of Philadelphia lo-fi psych rocker Kurt Vile. Now that Vile is off on his own with Kurt Vile & the Violators, the War on Drugs is now more fully the musical child of songwriter Adam Granduciel. On Slave Ambient, Granduciel's love of tranced-out, yet strangely filtered arena rock jams is on full display. The record actually gains its strengths and weaknesses from the same qualities. Highly repetitive structures hint at ambient music, while brightly twinkling pads of guitars, heavily sustained keys, artificial-sounding drums, and boyish vocals are all coaxed forward with a generous slathering of digital reverb. In its best moments, clean and classic rock melodies get taken for a fast ride with the windows down (as on the Dylan-via-Destroyer vibe of "Brothers.") At their worst, though, the tendency of Granduciel and company to get swept up in the easy grandeur of faux-polished art jams makes Slave Ambient sound like little more than the poor man's Unforgettable Fire. Comfortably normal, the War on Drugs make for a nice tonic to the sometimes overly weird attitudes of modern indie-psych bands.

THE WAR ON DRUGS + CAVEMAN + PORCELAIN RAFT | Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave, Allston | August 21 @ 8 pm | $10 | 18+ | 617.779.0140

Related: As he is, Photos: Kurt Vile at the Brighton Music Hall, The Horrors | Skying, More

As he is
For all the defiant, anguished fists we shake in the general direction of New York and Los Angeles whenever a musician becomes way more famous after they leave Boston, perhaps this city's gypsy-attracting disposition has advantages.
Photos: Kurt Vile at the Brighton Music Hall
Kurt Vile performs live at the Brighton Music Hall on July 11, 2011.
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Class Actress | Rapprocher
The rescue of Elizabeth Harper from Brooklyn's singer/songwriter coffeehouse circuit is the modern electro-pop scene's equivalent to Luke Skywalker rolling up to the first Death Star to save Princess Leia in Star Wars: A New Hope.
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Topics: CD Reviews , Music, CD reviews, Kurt Vile, More

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