I like this band, I like the sound, I hear quality- but, but, they are long and they are too content. Average songs in albums are often at least 5 minutes, at least, and those are not a dense 5 minutes, they are spread out and airy. It feels like there’s a lot of finding a neat sound and then just sitting on it. I don’t want to hear somebody sit on a sound, I want to hear them explore it, and I think WoD sits on their sounds. They might well grow on me, it’s definitely the type of thing that has a shot at it, so we’ll see, but for now I think that even though they’ve got game, their approach is not lined up with my approach
RELISTEN1: I was really hoping to be sold so immediately and so strongly on this relisten. The stuff I like from them I like a lot, it’s so solid. Ronnie Vannucci of the Killers has described The War on Drugs as “nutritious” rock, rock with all the good stuff you need, rock with protein and whatever else the metaphor wants. That feels accurate to me, but I couldn’t really tell you why. I wanted to come back to them after having had some practice listening to them, after being exposed to the songs of theirs that I loved. I wanted to be able to identify (or at least feel) those parts in the rest of their music. I can’t, not the way I wanted. I still only really get it in bits and pieces.
I definitely think they get better after their first couple albums, and I definitely think I’ve gotten better at listening to them, but I also think that the problems I had with them my first time around haven’t really changed at all. Or I guess it would be more accurate to say, my relationship to the qualities in question hasn’t changed enough for me to stop thinking of them as problems.
What’s painful is that their songs I like I really like. They’re so strong, they’re so much my jam, they make me want to like The War on Drugs so much more than I do. I suspect this whole relisten will repeat itself, given time. That is, some months from now I’m going to find myself aching to relisten to The War on Drugs again after listening to Nothing To Find and thinking to myself, “Man, what a good song, there’s no way The War on Drugs are C+, c’mon”. And I’m gonna listen to them again and I’m going to rediscover how often they’re long, instrumental, empty, slow, and repetitive. I don’t think any of those things are necessarily bad, but I do think they’re all things I’ve never, and still don’t, often enjoy in the music I listen to.
I did add a fair number of those long, instrumental, empty, slow, and repetitive 6+ minute songs to my main playlist, songs that I’d avoided my first time around; maybe being exposed to those and getting reps from them specifically will help open me up to be able to enjoy the rest of The War on Drugs’ catalogue, to really enjoy them, to push them out of the C-range. Only time will tell, I suppose
tunafruitsandwitch 