REVIEWSWar on Drugs, ‘Future Weather’

6

• SPIN Rating:6 of 10

• • Listen:

    Spotify

Release Date: October 25, 2010
Label: Secretly Canadian

On their glistening 2008 debut Wagonwheel Blues, Philly's War on Drugs made an album perfect for lightly baked back-roads driving. On Future Weather, the band now sounds like it's daydreaming in the backseat. The shiny synths of "Baby Missiles" and Tom Petty-ish, straight-on-till-dawn rhythms of "Comin' Through" motorvate amiably; they also stand out amid a haze of lolling guitar plucking and languorous soundscaping. (Ex-member Kurt Vile's incisiveness is missed.) Over everything, singer Adam Granduciel murmurs pleasant folkie melodies as if caught mid-yawn. Weather is good. It would be better with a little more gas.