A Deeper Understanding
by The War On Drugs

I just don't get it. Keep on playing, but this is good boring stuff, really. old fashioned shite. listening to "thinking of a place" whilst writin' this. Bob Dylan on vocals with a quite decent band - but not much happening - swell production, but . so what am i missing out on here? Is it the lyrics? I like it, but damn; there's so much out there that are so much better and challenging, so what is this doing on the very top of the ratings everywhere. Is it because it's so mainstream: Everybody kinda like it a little, and subsequently it ends up on the very top when we add everybodys votes together? Maybe I'll find out some day.

From Dingerbell 08/24/2017 20:59 | #196684 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Lost in the Dream surprised me as an album. Heartland rock has never much appealed to me, so I went into the album with some apprehension. I was absolutely blown away on the first listen, and it went on to be one of my favourites of 2014, if not my absolute favourite. It was a monumental task, therefore, for the War on Drugs to produce merely a worthy follow up to that album, but not only has A Deeper Understanding matched that album, it has exceeded its brilliance. Being more upbeat and uptempo than Lost in the Dream, but all the while maintaining their signature beautiful, meticulous and atmospheric sound, the War on Drugs have produced an album with subtle progression from their last, but a necessary one. A change that will gain fans new and old.

More importantly however, the album is full to the bring with outstanding songs, none more so than Thinking of a Place, which will definitely go down as one of the best songs of the decade. Pain, Holding On, Strangest Thing and In Chains are not far behind.

Had this on repeat all day.

It's a masterpiece.

From junodog4 TOP 100 COMMENTER 11/06/2017 05:21 | #200848 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

So this is what I read on another website -
"Just the sort of turgid (yes turgid!) dull, bland, tedious crap that punk came along to destroy in the 70s."
Ouch. While that is a little harsh, I can see how many have labeled this 'dad rock' that wears its influences a little too clearly. They do what they do very well. I just don't find it interesting. Certainly not 'album of the year'.

Slowdive is one of my personal favorite groups, and their comeback record was absolutely magical, so I came into this record with an anti-#1 bias when it came to ranking it....

...but keeping it out of my handful of favorites for this year would be simply delusional on my part. It's really fucking good.

Barring an unforeseen album coming out of the blue this is my album of the year, and top 5 of the decade so far. My favorite aspect is that the guitar solos have been turned up a notch and absolutely soar in these tracks. They really took what worked for them on Lost in the Dream and perfected it on this album leaving no weak moments on the entire album--their best to date in my opinion.

Favorites: Strangest Thing, Pain, Thinking of a Place, You Don't Have To Go