Future Weather

iTunes Review

Imagine a Basement Tapes-style jam involving Bob Dylan and Sonic Youth and you’ll have a sense of what Future Weather feels like. On this provocative EP, the War On Drugs dives deeply into murky zones both musical and emotional, oscillating between shoegazer haziness and garage-rock cacophony (sometimes in the same song). Singer/songwriter Adam Garnduciel — picking up the slack after the departure of bandmate Kurt Vile — dishes out jump-cut imagery with a teasing, slightly rueful air. “Brothers” and “A Pile of Tires” nervously skirt the outer edges of folk-rock, unreeling shadowy narratives built around skeletal guitars and lean drum lines. “Comin’ Through” and especially “Baby Missiles” are more produced affairs, layering quivery keyboards upon rhythm tracks to create a billowing atmosphere of free-floating angst. The War On Drugs get most experimental in “The History of Plastic,” an ambient sound collage drizzled with analog synthesizer daubs. Even at their most abstract, the band still retains a sense of their expansive Western-themed vision.