Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Aug 25, 2017With much higher expectations weighing on the band, it’s produced a successor that shines up and builds on that breakthrough in every way.
-
Aug 28, 2017A Deeper Understanding feels like the ideal War on Drugs album--the one where the songs are the strongest and the instruments the most uniquely cathartic, and with a mist that gives it all an alluringly blinding sheen.
-
Aug 28, 2017He has further upgraded, re-geared and honed the sound The War On Drugs have been working towards, taking the style and vision of 80s rock titans and updating it to something that sounds truly modern, but with that nostalgic haze.
-
Aug 22, 2017Both claustrophobic and breathtakingly expansive, The War on Drugs’ latest effort is their best.
-
Aug 25, 2017It’s the impossible sweep and grandeur of the music that tells the real story, of how a rush of sound can take us somewhere we can’t explain.
-
Aug 29, 2017A Deeper Understanding is an epic, panoramic record, but its effect is an intimate, personal one. The way these song stretch out make them grand, but they still leave space for you, the listener.
-
Aug 15, 2017A Deeper Understanding doesn’t seem to arrive at any conclusions or answers to the questions of self and suffering that Lost in the Dream addressed, since they are inherently unanswerable. For The War On Drugs though, the importance has always lied in the journey, and this powerful record proves that the band has no signs of stopping along the way.
-
Aug 25, 2017When the songs are this satisfying, when each guitar solo tears through cynicism like a wet paper bag, sometimes good old fashioned honesty is more than fine. It’s downright beautiful.
-
Aug 18, 2017Instead of trying to recreate the heightened catharsis of Lost In The Dream, A Deeper Understanding suggests a viable path forward from that turning point, a journey blown out to widescreen proportions that breathes new life into a familiar sound.
-
Aug 28, 2017A raft of obscure synths has given A Deeper Understanding a glitzy, gilded aura that makes Granduciel’s trademark lyrical tussle between comfort and the possibility of change more pronounced. They contrast beautifully with his weathered voice.
-
Aug 25, 2017Lovers of the plush paranoia of 2014’s breakthrough album ‘Lost In The Dream’ will be relieved that his fourth outing doesn’t touch that dial. From the opening highway piano judder of ‘Up All Night’ it’s like losing yourself once more in some lost golden age of MOR.
-
Aug 24, 2017The result is a record that banishes any listener cynicism on first contact; a wide-eyed look into the wild blue yonder.
-
Aug 24, 2017Adam Granduciel achieves full-on sonic rapture with his band's latest LP, an abstract-expressionist mural of synth-pop and heartland rock colored by bruised optimism and some of his most generous, incandescent guitar ever.
-
Aug 24, 2017Though there's nothing here to grab headlines, A Deeper Understanding reclaims and explores the distinctive soundscapes, vastness, and haunted psyche of Lost in the Dream, and that in itself is significant.
-
Aug 24, 2017Put some headphones on, find a good window to stare out of, and let time stretch to the horizon; A Deeper Understanding will reward your patience.
-
Aug 22, 2017It’s not as immediate an album as Lost In The Dream, and a couple of quality control lapses prevent it from being a truly great record. Yet it’s still a dauntingly accomplished behemoth from a group who grow in stature with every release they put out.
-
Aug 21, 2017A Deeper Understanding represents another step forward for the War on Drugs, and is among their most ambitious, consistent, and emotionally searing works yet.
-
Aug 17, 2017For the most part, it’s hard to deny that Granduciel has succeeded in pimping his wheels for bigger journeys.
-
Aug 1, 2017The album is more a distillation of the formula they toyed with on previous albums. It's not as new anymore, but it sure sounds great. [Jul - Aug 2017, p.61]
-
Q MagazineAug 1, 2017The War On Drugs might never quite find what they're looking for but with a record as gloriously realised as A Deeper Understanding, it feels like they're getting closer every day. [Sep 2017, p.104]
-
UncutAug 1, 2017The results is some of the richest, most compelling and least lonely-sounding music of Granduciel's career. [Sep 2017, p.24]
-
Aug 21, 2017It is a strange alchemy afoot in their presentation; their affinities for pedestrian rock-lite can either be regarded as dismissable trash, or the most intensely gratifying thing you’ve ever heard, depending on which side of the bed you woke up on the day you hear it.
-
Oct 5, 2017Opener Up All Night moves through the formulaic pop gears as smoothly as Don Henley cruising along the Pacific Coast Highway, while Holding On is a slickly realised mid-tempo foot tapper. However, shorn of the novelty factor, such middle-of-the-road material remains better suited to balmy summer nights and drivetime radio than to repeated home listening.
-
Sep 8, 2017Long and loses steam at times, but it delivers.
-
Aug 24, 2017A big, bold sound isn't a bad thing, but the fact that this album is a little less engrossing than the band's past efforts shows that the most interesting thing about the War on Drugs' music isn't the way they channel their rock influences, but the way they subvert them.
-
Aug 23, 2017Produced differently, A Deeper Understanding could be really startling stuff; as it is, it feels like The War on Drugs have made an agreeable, fan-pleasing album to escape into and hide in, not to a record to take on the world--but perhaps that’s not such a bad thing in 2017.
-
Sep 25, 2017His lack of nuance from a lyrical standpoint is startling, to the point where it confuses one into thinking that it’s profound since everything else is so carefully considered. It comes from a genuine place, sure, but his overly labored Reagan-era balladry rekindles a musical period that still sounds entirely dated.
-
Aug 25, 2017It’s still immersive music for thinking and reflecting. It might lack it’s ‘Red Eyes’ but this record is filled with enough to satisfy any existing fans.
-
Aug 24, 2017It’s all too controlled and unambitious; and just aping Dylan’s wheeze doesn’t make it any more intriguing.
-
Aug 24, 2017However dreamy the music may be, mind, it's not all quite so heavenly. The main distraction is how overwrought it all is. This is especially prevalent in Granduciel's lyrics which he sings in whispered reverence.
-
Aug 21, 2017While stylistically The War on Drugs have never released anything revolutionary, A Deeper Understanding lacks that spark that their previous releases had, which could well be due in part to their move to a new major label home.
-
Aug 10, 2017The album's lyrics, however, can't match this same level of musical precision, and Granduciel too often repeats the same vague sentiments using threadbare imagery.
-
MojoAug 1, 2017A Deeper Understanding is exhilarating in places, but perhaps inevitably, give n it's long and convoluted gestation, it can at times feel like it's trying too hard. [Sep 2017, p.90]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 144 out of 158
-
Mixed: 5 out of 158
-
Negative: 9 out of 158
-
Aug 26, 2017
-
Aug 26, 2017
-
Jul 22, 2023