Lost in the Dream

One song was pretty good, but the whole album sounded like the same song 10 times. Sounds pretty, but way too monotonous for my liking.

This album was fine, I feel like I would’ve loved it when I was younger, but ultimately I found it pretty forgettable.

I love The War On Drugs and only discovered them in recent times.

I see the appeal. I actually like all the noisy experimental dirges that lose their way from the original song structure and dont feature vocals. The vocals are very take it or leave it, not bad. Its cool. I dont know anyone that NEEDS to hear this before they die.

Honestly, started off with a ratcheting noise and then warbling tremolo guitar, and those are my least favourite noises in the world so my view was tainted from the 0:00 mark. What follows is dreary, dreamy, pretentious indie bullshit, so in hindsight the 0:01 mark was the high point.

Its not 1 star bad, but it's like 1.5 stars....

Los conozco y he oído algo de pasada, no termino de saber dónde encajan musicalmente. Veremos. Se deja oír, pero a mí no me ha emocionado. Me guardo las dos primeras "Under the pressure" y sobre todo "Red eyes".

More unknown-to-me recent indie? Hmm. Well, it's alright. Not noisy or annoying, but doesn't have any particular unique features (vocally/musically/lyrically) to draw me in. Maybe some unpopular things are unpopular for a reason. Also, all of the songs are 50% too long.

I've heard of the artist before, but was basically completely unaware of the music prior to listening to this.

The production is pretty interesting, and there's definitely a vibe going on here. I don't hate this, and would like to listen to it again in the future. At times, the vocals sound like Paul Simon trying to do an impersonation of Bob Dylan in the 1960s... and it's surprisingly not a bad combination.

One of those bands I’ve heard of but never got to hear until now.
A beautifully plodding, synth supported rock album on the soft and gentle side but with a lot of tasty electric guitar work.
Kinda sounds like a mid-80s Canadian folk-rock album or something like that.
Definitely want to spin this a few more times as well as listen to more of their catalogue.
For now though it doesn’t strike me as necessary listening but who knows after multiple spins?

I read that The War On Drugs was an indie rock band with various influences. However, what I hear on “Lost In The Dream” is technically well-crafted mainstream pop rock, which, in my opinion, is heavily influenced by Dire Straits. However, it lacks Mark Knopfler's unique characteristics and—since the album was released in 2014 rather than the 1970s—any innovative power. It's very good to listen to in the background, but of course there are a hundred other similarly good options out there.

Il y a des disques qui s'écoutent et puis il y a ceux qui se vivent. Ceux qui, dès les premières secondes, ne s'invitent pas poliment dans tes oreilles mais te foutent de force sur le siège passager d'une vieille bagnole américaine, te balancent une carte routière chiffonnée sur les genoux et te hurlent : « On se casse ! ». "Lost in the Dream" de The War On Drugs est de cette trempe-là. C'est l'album de l'évasion, la bande-son parfaite pour tracer sur une autoroute sans fin, le soleil couchant dans le rétroviseur et un putain de vide immense devant soi. Un vide qui n'est pas angoissant, non, mais rempli de promesses et de mélancolie.

Je vais être direct, parce qu'on n'a pas de temps à perdre. La première fois que j'ai écouté ce disque, une seule pensée a traversé mon esprit de vieux con blasé : « Mais bordel, j'ai déjà entendu ça mille fois ! ». Et c'est là tout le génie et la limite du truc, car Adam Granduciel, le cerveau du groupe, n'a rien inventé. Il a passé son adolescence, comme nous, à user jusqu'à la corde les vinyles de ses aînés. Et ça s'entend à chaque virage, à chaque pont, à chaque putain de solo de guitare.

Ferme les yeux, tu entends quoi ? Tu entends le Bruce Springsteen de Darkness on the Edge of Town. Tu entends le Bob Dylan de la fin des années 70, celui qui cherche un second souffle, mais qui aurait découvert les joies des pédales de delay et de la reverb. Tu entends les guitares cristallines et planantes de Mark Knopfler de Dire Straits. Tu entends Tom Petty, Neil Young... C'est un blind-test permanent, un hommage si vibrant et si parfaitement digéré qu'il frôle le plagiat de génie.

Mais attention, ce n'est pas un simple exercice de style pour nostalgiques. Pour nous, les mecs nés dans les années 70, c'est presque une évidence, cette musique, c'est notre ADN. C'est la radio qui crachote dans la bagnole des parents, c'est le son des premières virées en mobylette, c'est l'écho lointain de nos espoirs et de nos désillusions adolescentes. Granduciel a réussi à capter cette essence, ce sentiment universel de liberté un peu triste, et à le propulser en 2014 avec une production monumentale.

Car c'est là que The War On Drugs transcende ses influences. Le son, putain, ce son ! C'est ample, c'est aérien, c'est brumeux. Les synthés nappent l'horizon comme un brouillard matinal sur une plaine du Midwest. Les boîtes à rythmes, implacables et motoriques, martèlent un tempo qui pousse toujours vers l'avant, comme le bitume qui défile sous les roues. C'est cette fameuse rythmique "motorik", héritée du krautrock, qui donne à l'album sa pulsation hypnotique. Et par-dessus tout ça, il y a les guitares. Des cascades de guitares, des solos qui ne sont pas là pour la branlette technique, mais pour étirer le temps, pour peindre des paysages sonores, pour faire pleurer le ciel. Des morceaux comme « Under the Pressure » ou « Red Eyes » sont des monuments, ils durent 8 minutes, mais on voudrait qu'ils ne s'arrêtent jamais.

C'est une musique du mouvement, mais une musique de l'introspection. Granduciel aurait écrit cet album en pleine dépression, luttant contre l'anxiété et la paranoïa. Et ça se sent, car derrière l'énergie quasi euphorique des rythmes, il y a une fêlure, une solitude poisseuse. C'est la BO d'une fuite en avant, d'un type qui roule pour échapper à ses propres fantômes. C'est le paradoxe de ce disque : il donne envie de liberté, d'espaces infinis, mais il nous ramène sans cesse à nos propres angoisses, à nos propres rêves perdus. "Lost in the Dream" le titre est parfait.

Alors pourquoi 4/5 et pas le Graal ultime ? Justement à cause de cette sensation de déjà-vu. C'est brillant, c'est magnifique, c'est l'un des meilleurs albums de sa décennie, sans aucun doute. C'est un compagnon de route idéal, mais il manque peut-être cette étincelle de pure folie, cette rupture totale qui fait les chefs-d'œuvre absolus. C'est un chef-d'œuvre de synthèse, peut-être, mais pas une révolution. C'est le disque qu'on aurait tous rêvé de faire si on avait eu le talent de Granduciel et le répertoire de nos idoles à portée de main.

"Lost in the Dream" est une bénédiction, c'est un disque qui réconcilie le passé et le présent, qui prouve qu'on peut encore faire de la grande musique américaine, épique et intime, sans tomber dans la caricature.

Branchez le jack, baissez la vitre, et laissez-vous porter. La route est longue et magnifique.

Better than Coldplay

Very middle of the road rock music. Pretty quickly became background music. Now and then a melody would catch my ear but overall nothing stood out.

Makes me wanna go on a road trip across the states.

I spent my morning snuggled in a reclining chair with my toddler watching the sun rising above a lake while listening to this album. So that’s going to factor pretty favourably into my review.

The War on Drugs have been a long time favourite of mine. I’ve always thought they kind of sound like a mix of Springsteen and Dylan with Wilco as a backing band.

Very very long, but the music was good.

I’m at a 5; maybe a little higher.

This is a hard one to try and distill, because for the most part, I think you could get away with listening to this album with your eyes closed, just to catch the vibes & overall tone of it, and you’d still probably capture at least 70-80% of the essence of this thing. It’s an album where sound design tells most of the story, with the lyricism acting as texture to enhance and specify the mood, but not as something crucial, at least not until specific points in each of the songs. His Bob Dylan-y vocals add a bit as well, to portray some of the emotion, but you could just as easily blend it into the soundscape (and this album DOES do that a handful of times).

The 20 to 30% of this album where the lyricism feels more crucial (but again, not overly so) adds a lot of texture to my brain that just hammers the track home. Take a track like “An Ocean in Between the Waves”; it’s about losing sight of someone because of being buried down under a pile of stress, and being unable to fully recognize them because of it. It’s a little hard to parse from just listening, but I do think the instrumental provides so much of the necessary information to get there, and the lyricism is what hammers it down. The same applies to a track like “Eyes to the Wind”, where the lyricism expresses a sense of social dejection & self-inflicted loneliness, but the instrumental still tells so much of the story.

“Burning” is the point of the album where a sense of clarity is reached, and in many ways, it’s the climax point of the album, one where you could arguably just end it and have a satisfying 8-track narrative. The entire buildup, starting from “The Haunting Idle”, is REALLY well done, and once the tension releases itself, THAT’S the clarity point. Once again, the lyricism hammers home the track; it feels like being “released” from the clutches of this relationship has fully untethered him from some of his stress & tension. The clarity point hit for me as a listener too; while the framing of these songs have all made it seem like a relationship with a woman, it’s almost certainly been about his relationship with himself – his “release” here is an intentional choice to pick himself up and get past the demons in his life. The narrative is extremely obvious in retrospect, but it reframed so much of the album for me. The soundscape on this track, with the super triumphant tone, tells that story all the same, and they work hand-in-hand very nicely.

I *love* the choice to not end on “Burning”, though. The last two tracks are more of an epilogue based in introspection, and they cap off the album in a way that feels like well-needed therapy past the storm, to try and truly seal those inner demons away for good. The clarity that comes after “Burning” gives the last two tracks a bit more lyrical clarity as well, but they’re still very driven by their soundscapes.

“Lost in the Dream” is about self-love being a catalyst to open the windows to the soul, made specifically for the people who are most intimately in your life to see through. It’s done through the simple observance of a soldier lost in a daydream, and the curiosity of wanting to know his thoughts. It’s very lyrical, and it’s the most Bob Dylan-y song on the album, by far. However, there’s still something in the soundscape itself that aids the storytelling of the album. It’s that clarity popping up again. It’s just so much calmer. Even if you ignore the lyricism here, the difference from “Burning” to “Lost in the Dream” is still kinda striking from just an instrumental standpoint.

“In Reverse” is very Eno-y to start, and once it really drops, it reveals itself as a good blend of “Burning” & “Lost in the Dream” from an instrumental standpoint. Lyrically, while it’s a little hard to parse, there’s a simple framing that makes the entire track make sense: he’s still talking to himself. It’s his “darker” depressed self giving a sort of goodbye to his “brighter” happier self, as the darkness fades away, at least for now. That “war” in the first line is just the first 8 tracks. The vestiges of that “darker” soundscape fading out to end the album tells the story all the same, and it puts a great bow on the entire thing.

Of course, a lot of this is still interpretative, and I’ve sure made it sound like the lyrics give far more than they do, but I promise; this is an album where you can just listen and pick up on the overall mood swings, and that story from just the instrumentals & production alone is still extremely satisfying. To put it bluntly, I think you can get lost in the dream & still get most of this album. It’s a little artsy, perhaps, but it’s the type of artsy that’s right down my alley. I think it’s worth the acclaim, I think it’s worth being on the list, and I think it’s another example of the sort of stuff I missed out on in the 2010s. It’s a highly recommended album, and an easy 5 for me, if a little higher.

Great album that particularly resonated with me today. I wouldhappily have left it on repeat play all day.

This is a band I've heard of but never listened to! I'd only heard of them recently through Sam Fender - so going off that I thought they'd be more rock?

This was just coffee shop music to me though. Just blends into the background and nothing of substance. Wasn't bad just very bland. Tea with no milk or sugar

3 ⭐️

I've never heard of TWOD or this album. An interesting album. Some of the music reminded me of Pink Floyd, but also of REM or U2. The first impression is good, but not really inspiring. I will listen to it again. 4/5