Philadelphia’s The War on Drugs’ show at Melbourne’s Northcote Social Club this November is now sold out. The band will also play Sydney’s Oxford Art Factory, as well as Harvest Festival. Tickets to these shows are still available.

Last year the band released their second album Slave Ambient – the follow-up to their 2008 debut Wagonwheel Blues – to great critical acclaim. After the departure of former member Kurt Vile, Slave Ambient saw the band back brandishing their signature brand of rock’n’roll, folk, blues and everything in between.

Recorded over the past four years at frontman Adam Granduciel’s Philadelphia studio, Jeff Ziegler’s Uniform Recording and Echo Mountain in Asheville, NC, the album’s sound is an amalgamation of everything intrinsically American – instantly evoking the sounds of Springsteen and Dylan – whilst skewing it with unexpected synths and the “warped extravagance of 80’s pop”. As one of the most exciting rock’n’roll bands to emerge in recent years, ‘Slave Ambient’ is full of songs that feel both refreshingly new and instantly identifiable; crafting “mile-high rock anthems” that give credence to their folk rock forbearers whilst injecting new life into the seminal masterpieces from which they borrow.

Opening for Philadelphia rock’n’roll four piece The War On Drugs in Sydney will be Good Heavens, a new band uniting singer and guitarist Sarah Kelly, formerly of theredsunband, along with exWolfmother members, keyboard/bass player Chris Ross and drummer Myles Heskett. The result is a synthesis of ethereal dream-pop combined with the brute force of acid rock, with influences spanning from The Beatles to The Black Angels. The War On Drugs support for the sold out Melbourne show comes from local post-punk trio Terrible Truths.

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