The War on Drugs
“Who’s That”
Super High Quality Records (available via Bandcamp)
Somewhere between a searing impersonation of Bruce Springsteen in his prime and the music they pipe into your local science museum, there lies the intro to the War on Drugs’ new single “Who’s That."
It’s the first new song in four years from singer and bandleader Adam Granduciel, who is based in Philadelphia. No word if there’s an album to follow, but it’s likely.
Per usual, he’s produced and written this one himself. It’s a mid-tempo, chugging along, ’80s-style desperation rocker. It’s the type of sound that Granduciel has been perfecting for decades. He’s really good at doing this one thing, and I love the one thing he does.
With “Who’s That," he may have reached the top of the musical mountain — and he did so in a pretty casual way.
“‘Who’s That’ was written in 10 minutes somewhere between first coffee and school drop off,” Granduciel divulged in a statement.
Rockstars! They’re just like us! And, in this case, that means dealing with the low-level hum of “is everything going to be OK?” as the world slowly crumbles around us.
Granduciel goes on: “It’s a song about trying to love yourself despite things we can’t always control, like the anxiety, depression and self doubt that may stand in the way of living the life.”
To his credit, you can hear that hope in this song. That’s one of Granduciel’s secret weapons — writing about heavy emotional things (“Pain,” “Under The Pressure,” and “Holding On” are just a few of his other song titles) from a heroic, “we shall overcome this” position. It shows up musically in his worship of Springsteen, but there’s also a lot of Marc Cohn’s “Walking in Memphis” to be found in Granduciel’s songwriting.
He’s just a guy probably in a leather jacket wandering through this world and trying to make sense of it all between coffee and getting the kids ready for school, one massive guitar riff at a time.
On “Who’s That," it makes the rest of us want to wander right alongside him.
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