The War on Drugs have returned.
The Philadelphia band fronted by songwriter Adam Granduciel has released its first new music in five years.
The band’s new single, “Who’s That,” is a synth-heavy slow-building rock song that starts off big and only gets bigger as it builds to a powerful crescendo, War on Drugs-style.
Recorded at Granduciel’s studio in a warehouse in Burbank, Calif., the song features the Drugs leader playing nine different instruments in a typically layered, meticulous arrangement.
The “Who’s That” recording includes band members Dave Hartley, Eliza Hardy Jones, Jon Natchez and Anthony LaMarca, with the latter playing drums rather than the band’s usual drummer, Charlie Hall or sometime studio contributor Patrick Berkery.
The song arrives with a video directed by Max Flick that features Granduciel walking the streets of Burbank on a dark night of the soul. At one point, a newspaper blows into his face. At another, he picks a guitar up out of a trash bin and plays a solo.
“‘Who’s That’ was written in 10 minutes somewhere between first coffee and school drop-off,” Granduciel said in a statement.
“Itʼs a song about trying to love yourself despite things we canʼt always control, like the anxiety, depression and self-doubt that may stand in the way of living the life we truly desire.”
“There’s a lion hangin on my neck, I can tame it, but he might break free,” Granduciel sings. “Who’s that? It’s only my depression, baby.”
Is “Who’s That” the first song from a forthcoming War On Drugs album, which would be the band’s first since 2021’s I Don’t Live Here Anymore?
No word on that yet. The group is going out on a fall tour, though, which begins with two semi-local dates.
On Sept. 18, the Drugs are playing The Queen in Wilmington, Delaware. That is followed by a gig the next night on the Asbury Park beach at the Sea.Hear.Now festival on a bill that is headlined by Mumford & Sons and also includes The Offspring, Chaka Khan and Shaggy, among others.
Since I Don’t Live Here Anymore, The War On Drugs put out a live album, Live Drugs Again, in 2024. Granduciel also produced two standout releases: British singer Sam Fender’s People Watching, which won the prestigious Mercury Prize last year, and Always Been, the Delaware- and Philly-connected solo album by Craig Finn of the Hold Steady.
Last holiday season, The War on Drugs, who were founded in Fishtown in the mid-2000s and won a best rock album Grammy in 2018 for A Deeper Understanding, played a three-night A Drugcember To Remember stand at Johnny Brenda’s. The shows benefited Philly public schools and included guests such as Finn, Joe Walsh and Kurt Vile.
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