''I Don't Live Here Anymore'' is the fifth studio album by American

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

band The War on Drugs. It was released on October 29, 2021, through

Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most i ...

. The album received widespread acclaim. "Harmonia's Dream" was nominated for

Best Rock Song The Grammy Award for Best Rock Song is an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality songs in the rock music genre. Honors in several ...

at the

65th Annual Grammy Awards The 65th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony will be held at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on February 5, 2023. It will recognize the best recordings, compositions, and artists of the eligibility year, running from October 1, 2021, to September 30 ...

Recording

''I Don't Live Here Anymore'' was recorded at seven different studios over the course of three years. The album was co-produced by frontman

Adam Granduciel Adam Granofsky (born February 15, 1979), better known under his stage name Adam Granduciel, is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter and record producer. He is the frontman and primary songwriter of the indie rock band The War on Drugs, wit ...

and engineer

Shawn Everett Shawn Everett (born July 6, 1982) is a Canadian music engineer and producer best known for his work with Alabama Shakes, Kacey Musgraves, The War on Drugs, The Killers, and Julian Casablancas. Everett has won six Grammy Awards. Early life Ever ...

. Granduciel moved to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

at the end of 2014, but spent most of 2018 living in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. In March 2018, while still on tour in support of the band's fourth album ''

A Deeper Understanding ''A Deeper Understanding'' is the fourth studio album by American indie rock band The War on Drugs. It was released on August 25, 2017, through Atlantic Records. The album was mixed by engineer Shawn Everett. The album won Best Rock Album at t ...

'', Granduciel began work on the album at Outlier Inn studio in Upstate New York. He spent a week there demoing songs with bassist Dave Hartley and multi-instrumentalist Anthony LaMarca. In between touring, Granduciel also spent time writing and recording at Studio G in Brooklyn. At the end of 2018, the band spent a week recording at

Electric Lady Studios Electric Lady Studios is a recording studio in Greenwich Village, New York City. It was commissioned by rock musician Jimi Hendrix in 1968 and designed by architect John Storyk and audio engineer Eddie Kramer by 1970. Hendrix spent only ten ...

in downtown Manhattan. Granduciel spent 2019 in Los Angeles, and recorded with band at

Electro-Vox Recording Studios Electro-Vox Recording Studios (or simply Vox, as it is referred too currently) is a recording studio in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States, currently owned by American musician Woody Jackson. It is located on Melrose Avenue across ...

in May 2019. Granduciel and Everett separated in March 2020 as a result of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. They reunited in October 2020 at

Sound City Studios Sound City Studios is a recording studio in Los Angeles, California, known as one of the most successful in popular music. The complex opened in 1969 in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles. The facility had previously been a production facto ...

, where they recorded for three weeks. Recording also took place at

Sunset Sound Recorders Sunset Sound Recorders is a recording studio in Hollywood, California, United States located at 6650 Sunset Boulevard. Background The Sunset Sound Recorders complex was created by Walt Disney's Director of Recording, Tutti Camarata, from a collec ...

and

EastWest Studios EastWest Studios (formerly known as Western Studio, a component of United Western Recorders and later Ocean Way Recording) is a recording studio complex located at 6000 West Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Originally constructed by Bill Putnam in ...

. The songs on ''I Don't Live Here Anymore'' were all reimagined, rewritten and/or remixed multiple times over the course of the album's three-year recording process. Once the album was given a "final" mixing and was mastered by

Greg Calbi Gregory Calbi (born April 3, 1949) is an American mastering engineer at Sterling Sound, New Jersey. Biography Greg Calbi was born on April 3, 1949, in Yonkers, New York, and raised in Bayside, Queens, New York. He graduated in 1966 from Bisho ...

, Granduciel decided to change the mixes of several songs. After a month of revision,

pushed back its release date. One day, Granduciel arranged a final session with Everett to complete the album. They spent twelve hours in Everett's studio remixing several tracks, and then remastered those songs themselves.

Release

The band announced the album on July 19, 2021, simultaneously releasing the single "Living Proof". The album's title track, which features

Lucius Lucius ( el, Λούκιος ''Loukios''; ett, Luvcie) is a male given name derived from ''Lucius'' (abbreviated ''L.''), one of the small group of common Latin forenames (''praenomina'') found in the culture of ancient Rome. Lucius derives from L ...

, was released on September 15, 2021. "Change" was released on October 26, 2021. ''I Don't Live Here Anymore'' was released on October 29, 2021, through

. It follows their

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

-winning album ''

'' (2017) and is the second record of a two-album deal with Atlantic.

Critical reception

''I Don't Live Here Anymore'' received acclaim from music critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 85, based on 25 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Aggregator

AnyDecentMusic? AnyDecentMusic? is a website that collates album reviews from magazines, websites, and newspapers. Primarily focused on popular music – covering rock, pop, electronic, dance, folk, country, roots, hip-hop, R&B, and rap – albums are adjudg ...

gave it 8.0 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus. Rhys Buchanan of ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' gave the album 5 out of 5 stars, writing, "There's magic everywhere you look on this triumph of an album." Mark Beaumont of ''

Classic Rock Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, primar ...

'' wrote that the album is "at its most immersive when they strip the moodscapes back to piano, glacial atmospherics and cracked emotion on "Living Proof", "Rings Around My Father's Eyes" and the rousing "Old Skin", allowing a little fragility to tint their mist blue." Writing for ''

Beats Per Minute Beat, beats or beating may refer to: Common uses * Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area ** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols ** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men * Battery ( ...

'', John Amen concluded, "There’s something ungraspable about their music: referential yet original, derivative yet prototypical, memorable yet oddly irretrievable. Ponderous yet transcendent. A listener is invited to encounter the assorted boundaries of their own preferences, biases, identity – to let those hard lines dissolve." Sharon O'Connell of ''

Uncut Uncut may refer to: * ''Uncut'' (film), a 1997 Canadian docudrama film by John Greyson about censorship * ''Uncut'' (magazine), a monthly British magazine with a focus on music, which began publishing in May 1997 * '' BET: Uncut'', a Black Enter ...

'' wrote, "The War On Drugs have fine-tuned their hybrid of American drivetime classicism and kosmische on "I Don't Live Here Anymore" and buffed it to a warm sheen."

Year-end lists

Track listing

Personnel

The War on Drugs *

– vocals , acoustic guitar , lead electric guitar , piano ,

Juno 106 The Roland Juno-106 is a synthesizer released by Roland Corporation in February 1984. Features The Juno-106 is a polyphonic synthesizer with six voices. It is an analog synthesizer but with digitally controlled oscillators and chorus effects ...

, celesta , electric guitar , synth guitar , bass ,

Juno 60 The Roland Juno-60 is an analog synthesizer manufactured by the Roland Corporation between 1982 and 1984. It followed the Juno-6, an almost identical synthesizer released months earlier. The Juno synthesizers introduced Roland's digitally contro ...

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...

, percussion ,

Wurlitzer The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments ...

, Kurzweil , Prophet-6 , MPC ,

808 808 may refer to: Music * Roland-808, Roland TR-808, a drum machine * 808 (film), ''808'' (film), a documentary about the Roland TR-808 * 808 State, British electronic group * ''808s & Heartbreak'', the fourth studio album by American Hip hop artis ...

drum programming , Korg K2 ,

Walter Becker Walter Carl Becker (February 20, 1950 – September 3, 2017) was an American musician, songwriter, and record producer. He was the co-founder, guitarist, bassist, and co-songwriter of the jazz rock band Steely Dan.Russonello, Giovanni,Listen t ...

's old bass , felt piano , harmonica , ARP Quartet ,

Mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...

, lead guitar utro,

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

, art direction * Dave Hartley – bass , VP-330 ,

Rickenbacker Rickenbacker International Corporation is a string instrument manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California. The company is credited as the first known maker of electric guitars – a steel guitar in 1932 – and today produces a range ...

bass , electric guitar , OP-1 , cover and gatefold photography * Robbie Bennett – piano , Prophet 12 ,

Akai AX60 Akai ( ja, 赤井, ) is a Hong Kong manufacturer of consumer electronics. It was founded as Akai Electric Company Ltd in Tokyo, Japan, in 1946. Grande Holdings in Hong Kong purchased the Akai brand, and now distributes various electronic produ ...

Oberheim OB-X The Oberheim OB-X was the first of Oberheim's OB-series polyphonic analog subtractive synthesizers. First commercially available in June 1979, the OB-X was introduced to compete with the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5, which had been successf ...

, New Jersey electric guitar , Juno 60 , Eventide piano , ARP Solina * Charlie Hall – drums , percussion ,

prepared piano A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sounds temporarily altered by placing bolts, screws, mutes, rubber erasers, and/or other objects on or between the strings. Its invention is usually traced to John Cage's dance music for ''Bacchanale' ...

* Anthony LaMarca – drums , Hammond organ , percussion , electric vibes , electric guitar ,

pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a Console steel guitar, console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all s ...

, acoustic guitar * Jon Natchez – Prophet-6 ,

baritone saxophone The baritone saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of instruments, larger (and lower-pitched) than the tenor saxophone, but smaller (and higher-pitched) than the bass. It is the lowest-pitched saxophone in common use - the bass, contra ...

, Hammond organ , Wurlitzer Additional musicians * Michael Bloch – Mellotron , nylon AMS dub guitar , Ursa Major Telecaster , electric guitar , electric swamp guitar , lead electric guitar , lead electric raindrop guitar * James Elkington – lead electric guitar , lead acoustic guitar * Patrick Berkery – drums , percussion * Lee Pardini – grand piano , piano *

Christopher Bear Christopher Bear (born July 19, 1982) is a drummer and multi-instrumentalist member of the Brooklyn-based indie-rock group Grizzly Bear. Bear joined the group with singer Ed Droste for contributions on their first record, '' Horn of Plenty''. ...

– drums , percussion * Matt Lowell – background vocals *

– vocals *

Eric Slick Eric Slick (born May 15, 1987) is an American singer, songwriter and drummer. He is the drummer of Dr. Dog, performing on their albums ''Shame, Shame'' (2010), ''Be The Void'' (2012), ''B-Room'' (2013), ''The Psychedelic Swamp'' (2016) ''Abandone ...

– drums , percussion * Sam KS – drums , percussion * Daniel Clarke – Hammond organ , organ Technical *

– production, mixing,

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, ...

– mastering * Ivan Wayman – additional engineering * Nick Krill – additional engineering * Quarantine Cowboys – additional engineering * Steve Fallone – mastering assistance Artwork and design * Rob Carmichael (SEEN) – art direction, design * Dominic East – art direction * Daniel Topete – additional studio photography * Dustin Condren – additional studio photography

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

{{Authority control 2021 albums The War on Drugs (band) albums Atlantic Records albums Albums produced by Adam Granduciel Albums produced by Shawn Everett Albums recorded at EastWest Studios Albums recorded at Electric Lady Studios Albums recorded at Electro-Vox Recording Studios Albums recorded at Sound City Studios Albums recorded at Sunset Sound Recorders