Monday, August 29, 2011

New stuff - The War on Drugs- "Slave Ambient"

I was in Montreal for a work conference last week and had dinner at this terrific little boulangerie/bistro. They were playing some great music, so I asked the bartender for a good place to hear live music. He sent me just down the block.

I walked in this great little club, paid my $7 and asked who was playing. They answered "The War on Drugs". Local band? "No," they said, "from the States." Philadelphia, as it turns out.

They killed me! I thought I had stumbled on 1965 Bob Dylan in England going electric for the first time, but fronting Echo & the Bunnymen.



How did I not know this band? Blocked them from view because of their name? (I fell in love with the band, but can't imagine myself ever liking that name).

Very sadly, I was running out of Canadian $, and the ATM there wouldn't accept my card, so I couldn't buy Slave Ambient, their brand new CD. But they introduced many songs as being from Slave Ambient and they all sounded good, so I'm vouching for it and will be buying it as soon as I get back home.

I raved about another Philly boy, Kurt Vile, earlier this year, with a bit of a similar psychedelic sound (though The War on Drugs rock more), and now I'm thinking maybe there's something going on in Philadelphia that I'd better start paying attention to.

I'm not sure exactly what WYMA's beat is, but The War on Drugs is right there. Certainly all the many Centro-matic fans here at WYMA should like this band.

Read more about the band and see tour dates at their web page: http://www.thewarondrugs.net/

2 comments:

Rocksteady74 (Scott) said...

Kurt Vile was a member of War on Drugs for its first album.

Anonymous said...

Did you catch Caveman opening for them? Both are great bands.