''Wagonwheel Blues'' is the debut 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 The War on Drugs is an American rock band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, formed in 2005. The band consists of Adam Granduciel (vocals, guitar), David Hartley (bass guitar), Robbie Bennett (keyboards), Charlie Hall (drums), Jon Natchez (saxopho ...

, released on June 19, 2008 on

Secretly Canadian Secretly Canadian is an American independent record label based in Bloomington, Indiana, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin. Secretly Canadian is a label included in Secretly Group, which ...

. Primarily a collaboration between founding members

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

Kurt Vile Kurt Samuel Vile (born January 3, 1980) is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. He is known for his solo work and as the former lead guitarist of rock band the War on Drugs. Both in the studio and during li ...

, it is the only studio album to feature contributions from drummer Kyle Lloyd.

Background and recording

Upon the album's release, vocalist and guitarist Adam Granduciel noted that the album's songs "each have their own little time frame spanning over the last six-to-seven years." Granduciel elaborated, "There are sounds on these songs from over eight years of home recording; bits and pieces here and there, dumped from

cassettes Cassette may refer to: Technology * Cassette tape (or ''musicassette'', ''audio cassette'', ''cassette tape'', or ''tape''), a worldwide standard for analog audio recording and playback ** Cassette single (or "Cassingle"), a music single in the ...

MiniDisc MiniDisc (MD) is an erasable magneto-optical disc-based data storage format offering a capacity of 60, 74, and later, 80 minutes of digitized audio. Sony announced the MiniDisc in September 1992 and released it in November of that year fo ...

s, samplers, rough mixes run through amps and sampled, but most importantly all the performances are fresh and invigorating."

Critical reception

The album received generally positive reviews.

Track listing

Personnel

The War on Drugs

- vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, harmonica, drums, organs, samplers, rhodes, ms16, piano *

- electric and acoustic 12-string guitars, lead jazzmaster, vocals, OB-8,

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 ...

, trumpet, piano *David Hartley - electric bass (''1'' & ''2'') *Kyle Lloyd - drums, percussion, Casper (''1'' & 5'')

Additional musicians

*Paul Cobb - left and right drums (''2'') *Ryan Cobb - sweep guitar (''2'')

Recording personnel

- producer, recording (''3, 4, 7'' & ''9''), mixing (''3, 4, 7'' & ''9'') *

- producer *Jeff Zeigler - producer, recording (''6'' & ''8''), mixing (''6'' & ''8'') *Ryan Cobb - recording (''1, 2'' & ''5'') *Paul Cobb - recording (''1, 2'' & ''5'') *Michael Johnson - additional engineering *Kyle Lloyd - additional engineering *Brian McTear - mixing (''2'' & ''5'') *John Martin - amplifier preparation

Artwork

- SX-70 photos *Daniel Murphy - art direction, layout

References

{{Authority control Secretly Canadian albums The War on Drugs (band) albums 2008 debut albums Albums produced by Adam Granduciel