(photo by Katie L. Thompson. Used with permission.)

For me, the beauty of MP3 blogs is always the chance of discovery. Sure, you hear music in restaurants, at bars, on TV, in the cars and apartments of friends, but there’s something about stumbling onto a song, or better yet, a band, that you have nobody to thank for but dumb luck and the author of the blog.

That’s how I found The War On Drugs. I don’t even remember where or when it happened, but sometime a few months ago while looking for something, anything, new and interesting to listen to I was lucky enough to click on “Taking The Farm.”

The War On Drugs: “Taking The Farm”

It was instant love. The chugga chugga of the snare drum, sounding like a ghost train traversing the deserts of the Southwest, the spooky chiming guitars that sound as if they were sampled from scratchy old 78 RPM records, and especially Adam Granducie’s Nebraska era Springsteen “woo woo wooing.” There’s a little bit of Dylan style vocals to go along with the layers of fuzzy affected organs, guitars and drums that were run through a modular moog filter giving them a mysterious, instantly recognizable overblown quality.

“Arms Like Boulders,” which leads off their excellent new Wagonwheel Blues album on Secretly Canadian, is a bit more straightforward with lots of wailing harmonica and sounds, by far, the most like Dylan. Granducie’s voice is so amazingly sincere when delivering the vocals, throwing in the occasional “Hey!” that makes it easy to imagine them playing this song live as he steps off the microphone from singing and switches to harmonica for the chorus.

The War On Drugs: “Arms Like Boulders”

This is the new Americana, and The War On drugs succeed song after song in evoking memories of the Southwest and big cities of the Fifties and Sixties. It’s new but it’s old. They’re an indie rock band that somehow brings to mind, cowboys, cattle drives, glistening jetliners, American Indians, adobe structures, skyscrapers, the newness of airports, driving through New Mexico, all filtered through a Super 8 camera and a mirror.

This imagery all comes together in the video for “A Needle In Your Eye #16.” The organs bellow, breathing in and breathing out, then another organ comes in before the backbeat kicks in hard. It’s like an altered version of Springsteen’s “No Surrender,” just as triumphant, catchy, and inspirational. It makes me to want to kick it up, dance in the front row, belt out “So come on tell me that you feel the way that I…you won’t be a needle in your eye anymore.”

Turn the stereo up or put on your headphones. Dim the lights a bit, if you can, and let the video and the music do you like it’s done me. The War On Drugs may tinker with found instruments and throw together songs in their Philadelphia living rooms, but the music is huge, layered, and addicting. Wagonwheel Blues is the rare record that greatly impresses me and offers an escape, an instant escape, from the ho-hum world around you. Alright.