hissyfit: TORONTO TIM SAYS: NEW MUSIC: THE WAR ON DRUGS

Monday, 28 April 2014

TORONTO TIM SAYS: NEW MUSIC: THE WAR ON DRUGS - LOST IN A DREAM +++++

More Tim Patrick.

I've been eyeing this album for a while; heard snippets. It seems that this needs to be listened to in one hit…

Toronto Tim says:

It's a very rare occasion where you'll find me running down to the HMV in the big city to pick up a new CD... However, after one listen of "Red Eyes" by The War On Drugs on satellite radio, I found myself motivated enough to risk my neck and embark on the harrowing 1 1/2 hour trip down the freeway, rather than wait weeks for an Amazon shipment.

Was it worth the drive?

I'm thrilled to say... You bet!

Where do I begin? First off... 'LOST IN A DREAM' is a fantastic album! I had heard of Phillie-based The War On Drugs before, but just like another great band with a crap name - Destroyer, I was terribly misled by the moniker. Metal/hardcore/whatever? After actually having a listen to the music (not what I expected!), I initially thought it was one of those magical times when you believe you've discovered a great record/band that will become "my little secret." Little did I know that 'Lost In A Dream' is at the very top of almost every reputable journo's lists of best of 2014 (thus far). Almost universal praise and 4-5 star ratings across the board... It's actually refreshing to know that the press can sometimes get it right!

The music... I really hesitate to mention musical comparisons lest they immediately scare people off. Let's just say that it's difficult to categorize... Very much like theaforementioned band Destroyer, there are a multitude of influences/inspirations going on here, yet the resulting sound is refreshing and unique... Band-leader AdamGranduciel has taken a inbred heritage of americana and classic-rock baggage and cleverly blended it with ambient, shoegaze, new-wave, dream-pop influences, and constructed a sprawling classic all his own. He spent almost two years fussing away, obsessively crafting the 10 meticulously constructed songs, and the results are sublime. The arrangements are densely layered and unpredictable; dozens of various instruments creep in and out of the mix; unrelenting reverb and hazy vocals remind us that we are indeed "Lost In The Dream..."

Adam has admitted that the record was born out of a period of extreme depression, a messy break-up and feelings of isolation. 'Lost' spends most of its time wondering how to pick up the pieces of a broken dream. Despite this, it's a sonically uplifting work. There are even whoops of delight that pierce out amongst the the darkness & desolation of the lyrics.

Nine-minute opener “Under The Pressure” is an expansive two-chord jam, propelled by hazy keyboards and subtle horn arrangements. “Well the comedown here was easy, like the arrival of a new day” - “But a dream like this gets wasted... without you.” The three minute droning feedback & synth outro may have some reaching for the "Skip" button, but don't give up! It's the least accessible bit on the record...

"Under The Pressure":

“Red Eyes” was the first song that I heard from 'Lost'... It's a galloping romper that explodes with adrenal rushes of energy and causes spontaneous head-bobbing. Makes me feel like a kid again...

"Red Eyes":

“An Ocean In Between The Waves”, a epic seven minute slow-burning jam, brilliantly rocking out, recapturing the spirit of 80s pop radio; with driving percussion, propulsive bass-line and searing but tasteful guitar-playing that stands among the best I've heard in a very long time. "I just wanna lie in the moonlight and see the light shine in, with you in the outline…"

"An Ocean Between The Waves":

"Eyes to the Wind" is the centerpiece of the album. A striking ballad of gentle beauty that you wish would never end. Pedal steel and baritone sax add gorgeous colour to what's basically an acoustic driven number. Most critics compare this to a certain legendary songwriter that I'm not a big fan of, so I'm saying it reminds me of a certain Scot/Scott that I am a fan of... "I’ll set my eyes to the wind, but it won’t be easy to live again..."

"Eyes To The Wind":

"Burning" has become perhaps my favorite song on the record. However, the first time I heard it I actually cringed and skipped the track, since it was the one track that obviously wore it's influences on it's sleeve. One listen and you'll know exactly what I mean... Granduciel admits it's an barefaced homage to one of his heroes; and it's a killer. Chugging along on a wall of synths/organs, then soaring... "I'm just a burning man, trying to keep the ship from turning over... again." "Whoo Whoo!" I dare you to try and keep your foot from tapping!

"Burning":

Closing track, "In Reverse" begins with a mood of hazy, ambient music before morphing into a gorgeous breezy groove, the lyrics finally bearing acceptance of the darkness & pain & the need to move forward. "I don't mind you disappearing, when I know you can be found." "Like a light that's drifting, in reverse.... I'm moving..."

"In Reverse":

I've intentionally avoided direct comparison with other artists up to this point, but I can't help but say... This is the record Springsteen fans wish he had in him...

'Lost In The Dream' gives me hope that maybe great rock music isn't dying/dead. This is rock music with soul.

Great Live Band Performance Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbzV2Y06G-E

Visit The War On Drugs website: http://www.thewarondrugs.net/

9 comments:

Anonymous28 April 2014 at 15:58
Hi Tim.
ive had this a while and there are a lot of parallels to the destroyer lp
the lp it really reminded me of though was new gold dream more in terms of mood , but there are some sonic echoes as well. Have you got the ben watt lp , my lp of the yr so far
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Meetwood Flac28 April 2014 at 20:07
Like Trev, I've been toying with this for a while. Seen it attached to an Amazon 'also bought' and have listened on YouTube. So May well give it go now :)
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Tim Patrick29 April 2014 at 08:14
Hi David: I'm more than a little surprised that you've picked up War on Drugs, since I know your your not a fan of classic rock, guitar solos, Dylan or Springsteen. Don't tell me you actually followed through on cutting the sleeves off your shirts, after all of our bullying about your casual indifference to the Boss...
Ben Watt's CD somewhere over the Atlantic. I'm looking forward to receiving it. The cuts I've heard are lovely esp. "Young Man's Game" & "The Levels". His voice just gets better & better. Sounding a bit like Roddy Frame? Glad to see he's put "Disco Ben" on the back burner. I've been meaning to pick up his memoirs too...

Trev: You're right on. This is an album to play right through, headphones in the dark... and loud!
Speaking of The Boss, I'm surprised you've stood silent on 'High Hopes'... I think Bruce needs to find some new best pals. Tom Morello sabotaged this album. "Hunter Of Invisible Game" only real standout...

Nick: Perhaps growing up on the left side of the pond, I'm predisposed to appreciate a band like this more. Retro heartland rock influences like Dylan, Bruce, Tom Petty, Henley for sure, but I also hear echoes of Fleetwood Mac, Dire Straits, New Order, Cure, My Bloody Valentine, Spiritualized & more. I think you'll like 'Lost In The Dream' if you give it a chance.
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Anonymous29 April 2014 at 16:22
sleeves are cut , bandana is on! I don't really hear classic rock in the war on drugs although having said that I'm listening to It now and I've just heard a "woah!" I don't see the Brucie or the Bobby connection , although can hear a bit of boys of summer and its ilk. I do get the feeling a bit like the Destroyer lp they will be a bit of a 1 lp band for me.

The Bruce debate is over my head!
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Anonymous29 April 2014 at 16:50
okay I've just re listened to eyes to the wind and there is a bit of dylan in the vocals. - I take it all back - Bob Dylan fronting Simple Minds
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Tim Patrick30 April 2014 at 06:10
David: Funny you say that you didn't hear the "influences"... Well, with the exception of "Dancing In The Dar..." er... "Burning", I was the same until later reading all of the journos repetitive comparisons to other artists. I was was thinking Who? What? Where? They kinda spoiled it for me when I actually started to dissect the songs and hear the bits they referenced. I guess that's part of a reviewer's job. And Yup, I can hear a smidgen of New Gold Dream's soundscapes in there.

TJ: Ha! Marvellous review of High Hopes. I love it when your cantankerous alter-ego (Crusty Jones?) makes an appearance. I imagine your day-job requires a lot of diplomacy & tongue-biting and you're forced to suppress your inner Crusty... Anyway, sadly I have to agree with all of your sentiments about the Boss. Still have high hopes that some day... but not this one.
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Hissyfit30 April 2014 at 09:43
'Crusty Jones'! Love it… and, yup, I do have my moaning moments; mainly to and fro work on the M40. Manners evaporate when folk get behind the wheel and command their own bit of road. 4x4s are my current target of distaste...
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Anonymous30 April 2014 at 12:34
I tend to use Spotify as a bit of a suck it and see . Although today have been working from home and had mm songs on all morning via Spotify (so shat should give you 1/2 p if they still had them) rather than the cds - maybe that is the answer buy the cds but then also listen to Spotify also you end up a double winner ... or at least with an honourable draw. Incidently what is to stop someone going on holiday with Spotify paying an artists tracks on repeat therefore clocking up the 0.01ps? - Guess they must have some safeguards
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‘Jones’ is Trevor Jones; principle songwriter with the critically acclaimed duo Miracle Mile, where he works alongside collaborator, arranger and musical partner Marcus Cliffe. Together they have produced nine albums, the latest of which was 2012’s ‘In Cassidy’s Care’, rated ‘Album of the Month’ by HiFi News, with respected journalist Johnny Black noting that Miracle Mile were “far and away the most unfairly unsung musical wizards ever to emerge from this sceptered isle. Big on memorable tunes wrapped around honest-to-goodness emotionally involving lyrics.”

Trevor Jones has also previously produced four solo albums: ‘Hopeland’ (2009), ‘Keepers’, (2010), ‘To the Bone’ (2014) and ‘Happy Blue’ (2016). Co-produced again with Marcus Cliffe, ‘Carver’s Law is another triumph of intimacy.
Previous critical acclaim for Trevor Jones:

“Gorgeous, as ever. Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; gently beautiful and genuinely moving. You may cry.” The Sunday Times

“Masterpieces of subtlety and observation clothed in sumptuous, lush melodies.” R2

“Jones is in a class of one. Near-perfect explorations of the human heart. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me.” Americana UK

“Achingly tender.” Folk Radio UK

“Intellectually as well as emotionally engaging.” MOJO

"Meticulously orchestrated, careful and complex, this is canny songwriting leavened by bona fide humanity." Q

“Moves you to tears and refreshes the soul. Scintillating.” Maverick

"Gentle enchantment. The loveliest melodies you've ever heard.” Uncut

“Classic pop songwriting, gorgeously realised. Jones has compiled possibly the finest catalogue of adult pop. Gently beautiful and genuinely moving” The Times

Miracle Mile: A User's Guide by Johnny Black

Despite being based in a home studio in a rural backwater on the outskirts of West London, Miracle Mile chose to name themselves after a fictional gold rush main street half a world away where, according to adventure yarn spinner Jack London, ragged 49ers would blow their hard-won nuggets on booze and broads.
They apply a similarly unorthodox approach to their career in general. The band’s core duo of singer/guitarist Trevor Jones and multi-instrumentalist/arranger Marcus Cliffe have been relentless in their pursuit of the perfect song. Not the fastest, the gnarliest or the loudest, not even the most instantly commercial, but the song whose melody, lyrics, arrangement, performance and spirit might stand the test of time, giving pleasure to listeners not just for years but centuries.
They’d be the first to admit they haven’t yet found that perfect song and maybe never will, but I’d argue that their albums — the documentary evidence of that search — deserve a place alongside the best work of time-tested tunesmiths as elevated as Randy Newman, Elvis Costello or Tom Waits.

Marcus Cliffe wasn’t yet on board when the first album, Bicycle Thieves, arrived in 1997 but already it was evident that frontman Jones didn’t fit in with the prevailing mode. There was no rage, bitterness or self-loathing in his songs and nothing at all turned up to eleven. Instead, he offered meticulously orchestrated slices of ordinary human life, transforming the mundane into the marvellous with carefully crafted lyrics sincerely delivered. Even here, though, the hypnotic sample-based "Recycletwo" revealed a willingness to experiment that marked Jones out as more than just a pop craftsman in the vein of Crowded House or Aztec Camera.

What had started essentially as a recording project had become a five-piece live band by the time the follow-up, Candids, was released in 1998. Loaded with nagging guitar hooks and dynamic vocal interplay, it included one particularly affecting piece, "Small Ad," which featured just one line of lyric, the heart-rending couplet, "Baby’s shoes, never used." With those four words, Jones conjured up a yawning abyss of grief that other writers might struggle to evoke in an entire album.

Jones quickly realised that live performance was not his forte and retired to the womb of the studio for 1999’s third album, Slow Fade, which also saw the birth of the partnership that would lift Miracle Mile higher still above the norm. Marcus Cliffe, in demand as a player for Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Daniel Lanois, Mark Knopfler and others, was drafted in on upright bass.
Immediately the music took a more intimate turn, with Jones exploring the little things that illuminate the big things. Almost every song offers up at least one unforgettable line, like "I'd rather be ashes than dust" in "Everybody Loved You," or the concept of filling the void left by his loss of faith "with despair and metalware" in "Starwatching."
Slow Fade was further enhanced by the delicately filigreed swirls and swoops of England’s finest steel guitar maestro, B.J. Cole, whose style sat so well with Jones and Cliffe that he has become virtually a full-time member of the band.

And then, out of nowhere, catastrophe struck. Trevor Jones’ beloved sister died in tragic circumstances. It’s typical of the man that, rather than wallowing in his grief as he had every right to do, he dealt with his loss in the quiet, honest dignity of "Sister Song," the achingly lovely tribute that concludes the fourth album, Alaska. It can’t have been coincidence that the album, despite its meltingly beautiful musical landscape, was named for one of the coldest places on earth.

By the time of Stories We Could Tell in 2004, Miracle Mile were drawing critical plaudits in every significant British magazine and newspaper, along with comparisons to such pop pluperfectionists as Prefab Sprout and the Blue Nile. Critics were noting that Miracle Mile was fast becoming a repository of timelessly romantic music fueled by the same shamelessly emotional human concerns that inspired the great standards. More than this, it was being noticed that while most bands go into decline after two or three albums, Miracle Mile were getting better, perhaps because they’d avoided the trap of trying to be contemporary, and had no need to be more outrageous than the competition, largely because they didn’t see music as a competitor sport.

The sixth album, Glow, showed up in 2005 and found Jones and Cliffe further expanding their musical palette mixing Celtic folksiness with slow, semi-industrial percussion on the inspirational "An Average Sadness," blending Badalamenti guitars with Bacharach horns on "What Kate Did Next," and opening "Strange Sympathy" with a beautifully synthesised string orchestration before letting the song melt seamlessly into a laid-back country-rock rumination on the gap between aspiration and acquisition. Glow was also their most lavishly packaged disc, gorgeously presented at no small cost to themselves.

Album No. 7, Limbo, offered fifteen songs overflowing with sensitively wrought melodies and heart-fluttering lyricism. If it’s not a contradiction in terms, Limbo was even more quietly passionate than usual, deliciously understated and, at times, devastatingly tear-jerking.

‘Cassidy’s Care’ followed in 2012 and received similar critical acclaim.
Miracle Mile may just be too concerned with timeless quality for their own short-term commercial good. They’ll never sink a fang into the jugular when they can plant a whisper of a kiss on that sensitive spot at the nape of the neck and set off a tiny ripple that will, in the fullness of time, explode in the heart. I, for one, wouldn’t want it any other way.
Johnny Black

“Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; Marcus Cliffe anchors it in the sweetest pop. Gorgeous as ever. You may cry.”
Sunday Times

"Gentle enchantment. The loveliest melodies you've ever heard."
UNCUT

“Gorgeous melodies, hooks galore, intelligent lyrics that demand and repay careful listening, beautifully produced instrumentation, and an overall effect that combines poignancy and joy in equal measure. Music and words come together in a state as close to perfection as makes no difference, and leaves you with a delicious ache that makes you hug yourself with the sheer overwhelming joy of hearing such wonderful music. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me."
Americana UK

“A little oasis illuminated by musical creativity, glimpsed like a lovely mirage. Intelligent tunefulness that doesn’t kowtow to passing trends has always been as rare as fish fingernails, but it’s here.” Mojo

“Classic pop songwriting, gorgeously realised” The Times

“Moves you to tears and refreshes the soul. Scintillating.”
Maverick

“A tender sadness. Songs that have universal resonance.”
Netrhythms

"Trevor Jones has produced a gorgeous pop album that few will hear — unless there’s justice in the world.’ The Wall Street Journal

“Jones has compiled possibly the finest catalogue of adult pop. Gently beautiful and genuinely moving”
The Sunday Times