After sharing a little teaser recently, The War on Drugs has officially announced their upcoming new studio album, the melancholy ‘I Don’t Live Here Anymore’. The band’s first record since 2017’s critically acclaimed ‘A Deeper Understanding’, the new record is set to be released on October 29th this year, and to celebrate, the band have shared an evocative new single in the form of ‘Living Proof’.
The opening track from the album, ‘Living Proof’ is a classic acoustic ballad set adrift in light, ethereal sounds, reminding us all of exactly how much we’ve missed the Pennsylvania six-piece. Opening with soft strumming, a handful of pensive, melancholic piano chords, and a thoughtful peppering of restrained electric guitar, it’s a bold and beautiful change of pace that will have fans of old entranced.
Restrained but heavenly, the new single sees the band sounding more vulnerable than ever, with frontman Adam Granduciel delivering fragile vocals over gently strummed acoustic guitar. “They’re building up my block,” he sings with a hypnotic candour, “Maybe I’ve been gone too long.”
According to a press release, the song came out of a rare live jam session between the band’s full six-piece line-up, at Los Angeles’s Electro-Vox Recording Studios in May 2019. Emmett Malloy’s music video took place around another historic California studio, Stinson Beach’s Panoramic, with Granduciel wandering around nearby beaches, forests, and fields.
Set for release on Atlantic Records, ‘I Don’t Live Here Anymore’ will be out at the end of October, with the band recording it in more than a dozen sessions in seven studios over three years.
In contrast to the Granduciel’s usual approach, which involves endless overdubs and tinkering, this one came together live in the moment without much preparation, a warm organic ballad that feels like a truly unique entry in the band’s canon.
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