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Mar 14, 2014The more you spin it, the more you wear out that thin needle of your record player, you realize that Granduciel is discovering the problems of his life, not figuring them out or even reflecting on them. This all makes for an album that truly sounds like it’s coming to life.
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Mar 14, 2014Anyone actively looking for flaws in Lost In The Dream, the exquisite new album from The War On Drugs, is quite frankly listening to the album wrong. And at any rate, they simply won’t find any, no matter how hard they search.
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Mar 12, 2014To those of you out there who crave immediate, wistful pop music that will make you smile about the future and make you cry about the past, you won’t find a better album this decade.
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Mar 17, 2014There’s all the verve and naked empathy of the best of his classic rock forebears, with none of the bombast or contrivances. Lost in the Dream is a long record, to be sure, yet it never overstays its welcome.
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Mar 18, 2014The War On Drugs aims for listeners’ feelings about them, and for our collective radio unconscious. On Lost In The Dream, they nail us good.
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Jun 24, 2014One man’s suffering becomes our communal celebration, so to speak. It's a fine role for one of the year's best albums to play.
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Mar 17, 2014Like Justin Vernon before him, with Lost In The Dream Adam Granduciel seems to be heading for things far bigger than anyone could ever have expected. This is one War On Drugs that might just succeed.
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Mar 17, 2014It's a near flawless collection of dreamy vibes, shifting moods, and movement, and stands easily as Granduciel's finest hour so far.
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Mar 13, 2014If Slave Ambient represented a breakthrough, this one is an out-and-out star-maker that should rank among the year's best albums.
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Mar 10, 2014With their third album, the War on Drugs continue to recreate classic rock in their own image and in doing so they created a classic album of their own.
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Mar 18, 2014The album is loaded with songs whose greatness is revealed slowly, where the simplest, most understated chord change can blow a track wide open and elevate it from simply pretty to absolutely devastating.
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Under The RadarMar 11, 2014With all of its subtlety, Lost In The Dream drags a bit in small sections, but it's a small price to pay for such an immensely enjoyable record. [Feb/Mar 2014, p.76]
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Mar 18, 2014It’s nerves are uneasy, but Lost in the Dream stands as Granduciel’s most open-armed record yet, filled to the gills with selfdom and sprawling musicality.
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Apr 18, 2014Granduciel’s songs envelop you. As soon as you understand the lyrics for one song, another song buries words in hushed reverb.
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Apr 2, 2014Richly melodic and possessing a classicist pop sensibility, this is rock music with soul.
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Mar 31, 2014It’s difficult to imagine many better rock albums being released this year; it’s the record Springsteen fans wish he had in him.
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Mar 28, 2014Despite its big, dumb rock ‘n’ roll template and primary color lyrics, albums like Lost in the Dream can be as restorative of faith in old metaphors and storytelling tropes
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Mar 25, 2014We know that there’s still plenty of life and love and pain to come, but we’re pretty okay with it. In fact, we’re ready to hit the road and let Lost In The Dream pull us in again and again.
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MojoMar 21, 2014Admirers of Granduciel's previous forays along E Street won't be disappointed. [Apr 2014, p.91]
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Mar 19, 2014With Lost In The Dream and his band The War On Drugs, Adam Granduciel has made an incredibly strong case that his heroes should now be considered his peers.
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Mar 18, 2014Lost in the Dream pushes rock music forward.
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Mar 18, 2014Tone is everything for the War on Drugs. You hear tone, a silvery shade of effortless cool, in the electric guitars that ring out in ricocheting patterns and in singer-songwriter-visionary Adam Granduciel’s expansive vocals.
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Mar 17, 2014Lost in the Dream continues Slave Ambient’s trajectory, threading wispy, half-spoken melodies through emerald forests of tone, ducking conventions like riff and hook in favor of edgeless, shapeless sensuality. These are songs that drive off into dune-like landscapes, always in motion, never arriving.
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Mar 17, 2014Lost maintains a kind of motorik languor throughout, turning 80s arena rock into something much more intriguing.
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Mar 14, 2014It retains their signature blend of folk-rock songcraft and miasmic guitar-drone textures, but in a more purposive manner.
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Q MagazineMar 14, 2014It's a record for dusk, for dawn, and for all of the dark corners in which you might find yourself in between. [Apr 2014, p.109]
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Mar 14, 2014Granduciel apparently spent hours going over and over tracks as they were developed from their demo stage into full blown band pieces, occasionally completely abandoning latter versions to return to the demos, and that was the case with album standout track An Ocean In Between The Waves-it looks like an inspired decision.
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Mar 14, 2014Granduciel is clearly still drawn to his rock roots, but as the gap between him and those influences widens, it become suffused with anxiety and dread, the sort of existential ambivalence that Lost in the Dream masterfully conveys with its vast distorted spaces.
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Mar 13, 2014Acoustic guitar, harmonica and saxophone provide pools of warmth in the dusky depths.
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Mar 13, 2014An album that would sound as though it could have been made anytime in the last five decades were it not so immaculately produced, recalling Dylan and Springsteen and pretty much all of Almost Famous without ever descending into pastiche or mere homage.
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Mar 13, 2014The album may have been borne in a fog, but the result finds Granduciel on the other side of the murk.
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UncutMar 12, 2014Lost In The Dream is calmer and more confident than previous efforts, songs stretching out beyond the six-minute mark if the feeling is right. [Apr 2014, p.83]
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Mar 12, 2014Despite all the doubts and the self-admonishing, in a strange way you won’t find a more affirming album all year.
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Mar 10, 2014A brilliant record that serves as a perfect blueprint on how to make something new out of something old.
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Mar 17, 2014The band may have switched the formula, but the solution still adds up.
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Mar 10, 2014By the end, Lost In The Dream is similarly as sprawling and textured as its predecessor, harnessing the affirming, heartfelt sentiments without becoming corny or meek (mostly).
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Mar 10, 2014It would be difficult for any album to consistently live up to those peak moments, and Lost in the Dream doesn't. But Granduciel is on to something with this more band-focused release, and that new dynamic deserves an even deeper exploration next time.
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May 1, 2014Lost in the Dream matches last year's Wakin' on a Pretty Daze from Vile riff for riff.
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Mar 20, 2014As usual with T.W.O.D., these songs are only as good as their grooves.
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Mar 18, 2014A touch of '80s-style production, including occasional saxophone-as-emotional-beat, at times threatens to nudge things into a satirical mash-up of Dire Straits/Bruce Hornsby hits, but they ride the right side of that precipice.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 203 out of 217
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Mixed: 7 out of 217
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Negative: 7 out of 217
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Mar 18, 2014
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Mar 18, 2014
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Mar 18, 2014