Review Summary: Hazy perfection.
Personally, I have always found emotional pain difficult to describe to someone on the outside looking in. It doesn't always stab cleanly and leave you with sharp pain. Many times it ends up being a distant, slightly uncomfortable hurting that leaves you listless for many months at a time. While
Lost in the Dream is potentially one of the most immediately accessible albums of the year thus far, it is also the one that stays in your head long after the last song fades out. It exemplifies the understated strength of simple songwriting and layers upon layers of reverb, allowing listeners to get lost in the hazy atmosphere and get brought back to harsh reality with harsh but to the point lyricism. Lead vocalist/guitarist Adam Granduciel is the driving force behind the album, combining dreamy compositions with sometimes cracked and wounded proclamations, other times soft-spoken ruminations. It doesn't take long to get sucked into the journey that Granduciel is taking you on, and it's certainly the most fun that you will have getting lost within an album.
Right from the beginning, it is easy to see how well The War on Drugs accomplish what they set out to on this album. First song "Under the Pressure" plays along at a fairly upbeat pace, keeping things interesting and varied throughout. The nearly nine minute run-time includes an atmospheric shoegaze section that segues perfectly from seemingly aimless ambience into the succinct and engaging "Red Eyes". The lyrics smack of a broken relationship, and while it's obviously not new subject matter by any stretch, it fits with aesthetics of the music perfectly. The forlorn sound present on
Lost in the Dream is best pinpointed by the penultimate song "Suffering". Adopting a melancholy feel throughout the track, it moves at a slow pace that allows the listener to experience the dynamic songwriting present. Beautiful piano weaves in and out throughout the song, trading places with a clean guitar section and mixing perfectly with Granduciel's croons. The quickened pace of "An Ocean in Between the Waves" shouldn't be as smooth of a transition as it is, but the band has mastered the ability to take the listener on a journey; frankly, there aren't any notes that feel misplaced or songs that feel out of order in the track list, save for one. "The Haunting Idle" is certainly a pretty interlude (and some would even call it
haunting), but it feels trite and forced compared to how well the rest of the songs flow together.
The War on Drugs have created an album that aptly portrays what it is to be affected by, and subsequently move on from, a failed relationship. The lyrics are a candid look into something that is so elusive to discuss with friends and family, and when the joyous but ethereal harmonica comes in three-quarters of the way through "Lost in the Dream", one can't help but feel as though they have braved this journey with Granduciel himself. The stark honesty of the words in last song "In Reverse" give
Lost in the Dream an undeniably clear-eyed conclusion in terms of moving on. The out-of-focus pain that bleeds from every pore on this album couldn't more adequately represent the heartache that almost everyone has suffered from at one point or another, and also points to one last thing too poignant to miss; the pain ends, but life moves on with undeniable beauty.
