Philadelphia’s The War On Drugs are the vehicle of Adam Granduciel, frontman, rambler, shaman, pied piper guitarist and apparent arranger.

‘Slave Ambient’, their second album proper, is a brilliant 47-minute sprawl of rock ‘n’ roll, conceptualized with a sense of adventure and captured with seasons of bravado.

Recorded over the last four years, the album puts the weirdest influences in just the right places. Tom Petty and Spacemen 3, ‘Neu! ’75’ and ‘Blood On The Tracks’, Flying Saucer Attack and Bruce Springsteen, New Order and No Wave, The Byrds, Bread and Burt Bacharach. How is a music fan supposed to reconcile all of this?

Synthesizers fall where you might expect electric guitars (and vice versa); country rock sidles up to the warped extravagance of ’80s pop. Instant classic ‘Baby Missiles’ is part Springsteen fever dream, part motorik anthem.

‘Original Slave’ might sound like a hillbilly power drone, but ‘City Reprise #12’ suggests Phil Collins un-retiring in order to back Harmonia.

Available as a limited edition 2CD set (500 copies) featuring the rare, import-only ‘Future Weather’ album as a bonus disc. Also available on standard CD and deluxe double vinyl.