How The War On Drugs Reimagined Heartland Rock in 4 Songs

Heartland rock immediately calls to mind the timeless songs of Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and Bob Seger, to name a few. But The War On Drugs has reimagined roots music while slowly becoming one of America’s most influential rock bands. And in a way that artists routinely borrow from Springsteen, Petty, or Seger, The War On Drugs has become a similar touchstone, most notably on albums by Sam Fender and Noah Kahan.

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I wanted to highlight four essential songs from the Philadelphia band and, with them, a new chapter in heartland rock.

“Under The Pressure”

In 1997, the English space rock band Spiritualized performed at a medium-sized club in St. Louis called The Galaxy. My brother and I were at the gig along with the only other 10 people in Missouri who knew the band. Yet as Jason Pierce (formerly of Spacemen 3) and his group played “Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space”, they utterly transformed the near-empty Midwest club into something spectacular. This is exactly what frontman Adam Granduciel does with The War On Drugs, though to much larger audiences.

The nine-minute “Under The Pressure” begins The War On Drugs’ 2014 album, Lost In The Dream, and sounds like Bruce Springsteen jamming with Spacemen 3.

“Red Eyes”

When the Grateful Dead released Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty in 1970, the band had replaced its psychedelic experiments with Americana. On “Red Eyes”, The War On Drugs gives you an idea of what the inverse might have sounded like. Granduciel’s guitar playing is searching and occasionally unknowable, echoing Jerry Garcia. However, one can glimpse a kind of folk music through the haze of dense synthesizers as Granduciel sings about surviving a heavy darkness.

“Holding On”

This one appears on A Deeper Understanding, The War On Drugs’ first release on Atlantic Records following the breakthrough success of Lost In The Dream. Here, Granduciel leans into syllables like Bob Dylan at his most sneering. And thanks to a vivid mix by Shawn Everett, you can hear the band evolving, slowly coming into focus. The influences are easily detectable: Dylan, Springsteen, Tom Petty, and Neil Young. But few bands this side of Oasis have been able to pull off such heartfelt homages while still sounding brand new.

“Thinking Of A Place”

“It was back in Little Bend that I saw you / Light was changing on the water / Where birds above had flown”, Granduciel sings. It recalls the isolation of “Red Eyes”. But this is a survivor’s tale. An epic tune that moves slowly across 11 minutes of solitude, resurgence, love, and hope. If Granduciel indeed found a deeper understanding, it’s revealed in this hymn.

Photo by Marc Grimwade/WireImage