The War on Drugs

Lost in the Dream (Secretly Canadian)

Given the Garcia/Weir split of the War on Drugs, wherein departed longhair Kurt Vile once interwove lysergic epiphanies with co-captain Adam Granduciel, this Philly-by-way-of-Oakland trio gives as good as it gets. Lost in the Dream matches last year’s Wakin’ on a Pretty Daze from Vile riff for riff. War on Drugs’ third LP grooves smootherfastercleaner than its somewhat slumped predecessor Slave Ambient as Granduciel‘s plaintive, young-Dylan emoting recasts Dead-like guitar lyricism into modern digital liquidity evoking Eighties electro-pop. Motorik drive on a New Order synth smear (“Red Eyes”), pensive, Cass McCombs-like drift and drone (“Suffering”), seven minutes of undiluted beat constancy (“An Ocean in Between the Waves”) get high on pure ambience (“Disappearing”), pure Dylan (“Eyes to the Wind”). Cure meets Arcade Fire: (“Burning”). Light nine more like it next time. (Sun., 9:30pm, Reverberation Stage)

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This article appears in May 2 • 2014.

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San Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards’ Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews – first “Recommendeds,” now calendar picks – his writing’s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.