Maybe the idea of ‘old-fashioned’ needs a bit of a rebrand.
Both phrase and state of mind were hijacked by politicians and grifting cultural commentators over the last decade, manipulating its truth into an image of a regressive state that denies progress and inclusivity. Yet in the real word it’s still a place where good things come from.
There were many supposedly passe aspects to the The War On Drugs’ gradual ascent: rather than find a million Tik-Tok users overnight and signing a deal without even writing a song, their Philadelphian leader Adam Granduciel has spent the last fifteen years writing and playing his near timeless music to gradually building audiences of those open minded enough to listen.
In an age of immediacy, this slowest of slow burns has resulted in the unlikely scenario of I Don’t Live Here Anymore being one of the most anticipated releases of the year.
Much has been made of the singer’s little-disguised admiration for Bob Dylan, closely followed by other 20th century grizzled rock veterans such as Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen (his son, much to the Boss’ delight, is named after him).
It would be disingenuous not to point to the shadow of all three on the follow up to 2017’s A Deeper Understanding, but also unfair not to call out its spirit of transcendence, wherein these much-worshipped hall of famers are now merely inspiring the process, observers of an artist claiming his own space distinct from each of them.
The most obvious proof of this is that the band’s previous creative high point – the mellifluous, epic Under The Pressure – is usurped so effortlessly by the album’s title-track, trailed in advance as an appetite-wetter supreme. Joined by Brooklynites Lucius in its soulful, almost gospel-like chorus, on it Granduciel muses uncertainly on both past and future to a never attained before state of musical resonance.
Navigating to this mid-point in the record is a satisfying journey; opener Living Proof – recorded as live against Granduciel’s usual process – is paced more evenly, finishing with a consoling, naked guitar solo.
After this early (dis)quiet though things let rip, Harmonia’s Dream a joyous gambit laced with spiritual imagery – ghosts, dreams – that rides on pulsing synths and soft-focus rock n’ roll. As with everything else here, it could’ve been written at any point in the last thirty years.
Fatherhood has keenly developed the singer’s appreciation of legacy – on Change he reflects on a life ‘running from the white light’ whilst a piano leads softly. ‘Maybe I was born too late’, he broods , a man out of time in an era which defaults only to superficiality, a reticent haze which passes on to the muscular backdrop of I Don’t Wanna Wait.
Elsewhere, The War On Drugs have rarely been so alive; Victim scampers along like an even more melodramatic Boys Of Summer; Wasted is a bittersweet, sunsetting apex; closer Occasional Rain is a country-infused slow dance for fast times; Rings Around My Father’s Eyes an exquisite, lighter-ready ballad.
I Don’t Live Here Anymore is a record of fulfillment, written by a man who’s quietly risen to a fame he’s not sure he wants. It’s also a reminder that values becoming lost in this century’s technological group mindfuck – empathy, forgiveness, love – still make for just as compelling a subject matter as anything else.
Granduciel could’ve written it as if he’d now paid his dues, but wisely he hasn’t let these new horizons make him forget the old-fashioned happiness of just living the one life we all get.
