The War On Drugs: Slave Ambient Vinyl 2LP

Your Love Is Calling My Name… Slave Ambient is the last War On Drugs record to feature Kurt Vile on guitar – Vile had become increasingly interested in his own solo material and was less involved in the songwriting of Slave Ambient than on Future Weather (W.O.D. frontman Adam Granduciel was also a touring member of Viles band around this time). Slave Ambient expands the Philly bands lush sound palate to include analog synths, sample collages, drum machines and sax, and the resulting stew sounds something like Bruce Springsteen produced by Kevin Shields. Its hard to tell where one song ends and the next begins; gorgeously fuzzy neo-psych ballads like Best Night, Its Your Destiny and Black Water Falls give way tocrystalline ambient passages (City Reprise, The Animator, Come For It) that accentuate the gravity of Granduciels lyrics, all draped in the same candy-painted, sepia-toned veneer thats depicted on the album cover (a photo taken by Granduciel while on tour in Spain). Double vinyl pressing released by Secretly Canadian, includes code for digital download.

• double vinyl pressing
• printed inner sleeves
• digital download included
• music label: Secretly Canadian 2011

reviewed bybig dumb man 05/2018