[rating=7.00]
After a period of loneliness and depression on tour, Adam Granduciel wrote and recorded the third album for his band The War on Drugs, Lost in the Dream, which received universal acclaim and increased exposure for the band. The release of A Deeper Understanding still adheres to a lot of the same introspective themes as it predecessor, as well as many of the same types of instrumentation and playing styles found on its precursor. Steady, pulsing drums provide the beat to chugging acoustic guitar strumming and a lonely sounding saxophone can occasionally be heard in the background as piano takes the forefront.
On A Deeper Understanding, Adam Granduciel creates songs that sound like 70’s era Bob Dylan singing Bruce Springsteen songs. “Holding On” is the best representation of this on the album with Granduciel singing in a raspy voice with drawn out vowels and instrumentation akin to Springsteen’s early work, complete with a xylophone. Only a few of the songs on the album fall into the vein of steady rockers though, like “Nothing to Find”, with its lively guitar and synth solos, and “In Chains”, which feels like it would have been right at home on Lost in the Dream. Many of the songs find themselves a bit more subdued in tempo and acoustic guitar mostly takes a back seat to piano and synthesizers. The eleven minute long epic “Thinking of a Place” was the unlikely first single from the album. Full of synth swells and slide guitars, Granduciel sings about lost love and redemption as the listener loses themselves in the soothing jams. “Pain” is another beautifully written song full of plucked notes and a celeste played under heart-wrenching lyrics like “I resist what I cannot change/and I want to find what can’t be found.”
What is most astounding is that The War on Drugs does nothing to hide their influences like Dylan, Springsteen, Neil Young and Tom Petty. They are adept at taking these iconic sounds and making it into something that is unmistakably all their own. The way that they can take songs that run close to ten minutes and make them chart toppers is equally as astounding. Yet when you can easily find yourself getting lost in one of Granduciel’s songs it’s easy to see how that can happen. A Deeper Understanding is in no way a reinvention of the formula that made Lost in the Dream so acclaimed. It is however, a more mature and layered sounding approach to what Granduciel started on that album.
