Song of the Week - Taking the Farm by The War on Drugs

Welcome to the working week! Hope everyone enjoyed the weekend, and spent a leisurely Sunday night at home watching The Adele Awards.

First on our priority list this week is to purge your rotting ears of the incessant "Rolling in the Deep" abuse they've been unwillingly subjected to for the past year. This week's SOTW is a rollicking little ditty by our favorite band of 2011, The War on Drugs. You probably recall us raving about last year's Slave Ambient, which is the official RAJ Album of the Year (21 be damned). The album is a rock masterpiece that conjures names like Petty, Springsteen, and Dylan, channeled through kraut rock and ambient sonic collages.

But today we're going back to their first release, 2008's Wagonwheel Blues, and a song called "Taking the Farm". We saw TWOD when they played Lincoln Hall back in December, and this was the second song on their set list. I had yet to hear it, and they leapt into it with a fierce determination to blow the doors off the place. They succeeded. The song was revelatory in its pace, melody, and the sheer volume produced by a guitar, bass, drums, and synthesizer. We immediately went home and sought out the album, and are ecstatic to report that it rivals Slave Ambient as a cohesive collection of classic American rock 'n roll. Check out their label, Secretly Canadian, for further info on the band and to purchase these albums.