Your Review
CRITIC REVIEWS
100
It’s a tender, inviting, consoling, comforting record that you’ll play again and again (stoned or not). In short, Lost In The Dream is perfect in every way.
100
The 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.
100
The record coalesces elegantly nonetheless, forming a flawless, ethereal artistic statement by a band who has clearly refined and perfected their craft.
100
It’s no small feat to make rock music sound this fresh nowadays. Amid the hordes of bands pulling the same old tired moves, thank god for The War On Drugs.
94
Lost in the Dream is a sad record, but it’s also a hopeful one, enriched by the journey of its own heartbreak and the possibilities that remain.
91
On Lost In The Dream, The War On Drugs provides the darkness, and fans are just lucky enough to listen.
90
With 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.
90
Simultaneously spare and just as fully fleshed out as it needs to be, Dream is a perfect distillation of Granduciel's wide-open claustrophobia. The sound is more expansive than ever, even as its maker's songs seem more personal and less universal.
90
2011’s ‘Slave Ambient’ may have been a cult success, but this follow-up is a fast-flowing gully to mainstream domination.
90
It's a near flawless collection of dreamy vibes, shifting moods, and movement, and stands easily as Granduciel's finest hour so far.
90
Like Slave Ambient, the indie-rockers’ third album repeatedly slips in and out of focus, while maintaining the yearning for forward momentum present in all of his work.
88
What at first seemed like a fairly straightforward, traditionalist roots-rock exercise has very gradually, very subtly blossomed into something wondrous and profound.
85
Though clearly there's a significant amount of work going into their music, it manages to sound effortless.
83
It’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.
80
The listener is constantly reminded that this is an expansive modern rock record, stuffed with big hooks and a crisp production
80
Lost In The Dream doubles down on its predecessor’s adventurous side, and it’s War On Drugs’ most engrossing album thus far.
80
Previous album 'Slave Ambient' seemed to push The War on Drugs on to a new level: 'Lost In A Dream' takes them even higher. From the misty cover to the dreamy rhythms and hazy melodies, it’s an album that lives up to its title.
80
Lost In The Dream is an instant salve to the shittiness of modern life, an album that would sound as though it could have been made anytime in the last five decades were it not so immaculately produced
80
They most certainly have created something special over the 15 months or so the album took to piece together.
80
Lost in the Dream pushes rock music forward—it isn’t the mirror of supposed better times that lesser bands make because they can’t or don’t want to locate their own voice.
80
Granduciel 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.
80
Richly melodic and possessing a classicist pop sensibility, this is rock music with soul.
80
‘Lost In The Dream’ embodies a big-hearted Americana, one that trades the knotted complexity of the quotidian for a wistful, widescreen beauty.
80
The decaying guitars and analogue synthesisers create a crepuscular melancholy. These are impassioned songs, but they steer clear of Bruce's bombast or lighters-aloft choruses.
80
Right to the final decayed note, Lost In The Dream is a triumph of emotive feel amid neurotic detail: immaculately conceived big music for little people.
80
The lyrics are buried and impressionistic, referencing disappearing, darkness and an inability to see. The album may have been borne in a fog, but the result finds Granduciel on the other side of the murk.
80
It retains their signature blend of folk-rock songcraft and miasmic guitar-drone textures, but in a more purposive manner.
80
Lost… maintains a kind of motorik languor throughout, turning 80s arena rock into something much more intriguing.
8mo
78
It’s a union between longtime engineer Jeff Zeigler and principal songwriter Adam Granduciel whose result is a ten track outing branded with the Philly native’s perfectionist watermark as the two seamlessly weave bar room piano, pedal steel, and seasoned vocals with enough drifting effects to fill whatever space comes between.
75
By 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).
70
The new War On Drugs album is a winning combination of psychedelic rock, krautrock, folk, and Americana--just like the band's last album, but better.
60
Singer Adam Granduciel piles his blue collar mystic lyricism atop a rush of eddying rhythms and tones that feature Robbie Bennett's keyboards more prominently than ever.
60
Longer on instrumental texture than songwriting, their third album recasts the blue-collar fantasias of Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen as earthy ambient music, better to soak in than to scrutinize.
It grew on me. And continued to grow. Still growing.
The War on Drugs imagines an alternate history where, instead of Brian Eno and David Bowie discovering Krautrock and repurposing it for pop audiences, it was the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Jackson Browne and other soft/heartland rockers of the late 70s/80s, nicking the motorik beat to power "Dancing in the Dark" and blessing "The Boys of Summer" with that pastoral, nostalgic reverb. The line is so blurred between the psychedelic and the straight-ahead rock that one has ... read more
'Lost in the Dream' is haunting. Of all the words I can think to describe the album--folksy, dreamy, sleepy, ambient, etc.--haunting fits the best. It isn't frightening or a bummer in any way; it's the melodies that haunt me once the album has finished playing. The melodies and soundscape of this album transcend the boundaries of my headphones and speakers, because they seem so much a part of the world around me. It isn't a groundbreaking album; it captures a lot of ... read more
One of the most instrumentally lush albums this decade. Although their influences are obvious, The War On Drugs still create an album full of thoughtful and awe-inspiring moments. There are a few barn burner moments that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
Best Tracks: Red Eyes, Suffering, An Ocean In Between the Waves, Burning, In Reverse
Worst Tracks: The Haunting Idle
Best Tracks: Red Eyes, Suffering, An Ocean In Between the Waves, Burning, In Reverse
Worst Tracks: The Haunting Idle
With it's gentle, soft arms, Lost in the Dream embraces the listener never letting go. It gets you right at first listen, but it is only with more and more returns that is revealed it's true beauty, never sounding repetitive or tiresome. The songs are very well crafted, the tracklist is perfect, the production is clean and wide and Adam Granduciel's almost Dylanesque vocals sound beautifully simple, matching the smooth synths and reverbed/delayed guitar fills in a way nothing does nowadays. A ... read more
END OF YEAR LISTS
More Lists
MISC LISTS
Track List
- Under the Pressure
- Red Eyes
- Suffering
- An Ocean in Between the Waves
- Disappearing
- Eyes to the Wind
- The Haunting Idle
- Burning
- Lost in the Dream
- In Reverse
Contributions By
patton, thisisabtlgrnd, indiegalaxy10, wallver, Holocene, HonzaH, philthy, erik, Alex69, Alejandro González
pitchfork.com
The War on Drugs Win Best Rock Album 
stereogum.com
Video: The War On Drugs – “Nothing To Find” 
Added on: December 4, 2013
