THE WAR ON DRUGS-“ Barrel Of Batteries EP”

One of my personal fave labels, Secretly Canadian, recently signed Philadelphia’s The War On Drugs, and they’re offering an EP, “Barrel Of Batteries,” for free as a zip file. Picture Byrdsy jangle and a delivery somewhere between Bob Dylan and Warren Zevon (and, on “Pushing Corn,” a little Arcade Fire crawl) and you’ll get the general idea. It’s a really great EP—my big complaint is that with only three proper songs (and two toss-off atmospheric instrumentals clocking in at less than 2 minutes each), you don’t really get to know the band before it’s over. That’s too bad, because I definitely want to know more. The good news: I understand a proper LP will drop this year.