From the very beginning, it looks like the sessions for The War On Drugs’ upcoming album A Deeper Understanding were extremely fruitful. The band recorded the album’s fantastic “Pain” on the first night working on the record “nearly live,” they say in a press release. We heard them play the song live a few days ago, but now the studio recording has been released as A Deeper Understanding‘s official second single.
If you’re looking for something that’s different from the advance tracks they’ve shared so far — “Holding On,” “Thinking Of A Place,” and “Strangest Thing” — you’re not going to find that here. But then again, why would you want that in the first place? Adam Granduciel and his band have proven three times now in the past few months that their comforting brand of nostalgic, psychedelic Americana is peerless in contemporary rock. It feels like the group gets better and better with every new A Deeper Understanding track they put out, until you go back and listen to the previous ones and remember that those are also pretty darn amazing. This album is one to really look forward to, is what I’m saying.
If you want to hear the band play “Pain” live, revisit their previous performance of it here, catch them on tour, or wait until they perform it on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday, August 9.
Otherwise, listen to the album version of “Pain” above.
