The War on Drugs - Holding on

After the highly acclaimed Lost in the Dream, it was an interesting question seeing how they were going to follow-up such an amazing album. We're finally getting an answer, and if in Lost they packed and restricted the sound to reach that shoegazy americana style, in their new track, Holding On they decided to expand themselves, go grandiloquent and fully embrace the Bruce Springsteen references that they've been hinting at since their formation.

Opening with shiny synths, they attack from very early on the track with electrifying riffs of pure classic rock, we feel the urge to listen to it in a stadium as if in the gold era of rock bands. Adam Granduciel, with his forced Dylan-esque voice, goes on verses that try to decipher the past in order to understand the present. What went wrong? What could have been changed? It's as if this much reflection on old times was mirrored by the sonic atmospheres that expand like the Route 66 through the U.S. desert, and just fading in the infinite in that finale.

As a whole, it is a track that shows consistency with their previous albums, but that also shows new paths for the band (yes, somehow looking back to the classics is their way to reinvent their sound). They keep sounding fierce in the melody and wise in the lyrics, a band that hasn't had their big commercial break-out they deserve, but that is patient in creating a worthy catalogue rather than selling themselves for popular acclaim (ehem... Black Keys, Kings of Leon). This amazing single, along with the meditative 11-minutes Thinking of a Place, just boost our expectations on what their new album might have for us.