The War on DrugsLive DrugsSUPER HIGH QUALITY RECORDS7/10

In September 2014back when he was merely a cantankerous musician and hadnt been accused of sexual misconduct, harassing music journalists onstage, or anything else worthy of populating his Wikipedia Controversies sectionMark Kozelek took issue with The War on Drugs. The Red House Painters/Sun Kil Moon songwriter was playing (billed as the latter) at the Ottawa Folk Fest at the same time as the Philadelphia band, becoming irritable due to the fact he could hear them. I hate that beer commercial lead-guitar shit, Kozelek announced onstage. This next song is called The War on Drugs Can Suck My Fucking Dick. It wasnt, of course, but Kozelek did later record and release a track called War on Drugs: Suck My Cockan explication of a band he publicly described as sounding like Don Henley meets John Cougar meets Dire Straits meets Born in the USAera Bruce Springsteen. Hes not wrong. Thats exactly what The War on Drugs sound like. But, as Kozelek also said, thats not a criticism, its an observation.

Thats something that this, the bands first live album, only confirms. Spliced together from performances between 2014when they started touring for that years breakthrough third album, Lost in the Dreamand 2019before the coronavirus pandemic took its devastating toll on the music industryLive Drugs makes these songs sound even more lush, textured, and, yes, 1980s than they do on their recorded counterparts. In fact, theres a depth to these recordings thats rarely found on actual studio albums, let alone live ones. Just listen to the melancholy, heartwarming chug of Strangest Thing and its explosive yet muted beer commercial lead-guitar shit, or the dreamy skygazing of crowd favorite Under the Pressure, which is extended to almost twelve minutes and is full of both more vitality and vulnerabilityespecially in singer Adam Granduciels weathered, husky vocalsthan it has on Lost in the Dream.

In fact, while the band can sound rather one-dimensional on their actual albums at times, here, songs like Pain, Red Eyes, and Thinking of a Place all bloom into full, unrestrained life. And while their cover of Warren Zevons Accidentally Like a Martyr cant match the haunted-heart majesty of the original, it comes pretty close. Unlike most live albums, then, which tend to be geared toward people who are already fans of the band, Live Drugs actually serves as a decent primer for the uninitiated. And it certainly shows that Kozelek probably should have just kept his mouth shut and listened. He might have even enjoyed himself.

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FLOOD | The War on Drugs, Live Drugs - FLOOD Magazine