Your Love Is Calling My Name... Slave Ambient is the last War On Drugs record to feature Kurt Vile on guitar - Vile had become increasingly interested in his own solo material and was less involved in the songwriting of Slave Ambient than on Future Weather (W.O.D. frontman Adam Granduciel was also a touring member of Vile’s band around this time). Slave Ambient expands the Philly band’s lush sound palate to include analog synths, sample collages, drum machines and sax, and the resulting stew sounds something like Bruce Springsteen produced by Kevin Shields. It’s hard to tell where one song ends and the next begins; gorgeously fuzzy neo-psych ballads like “Best Night,” “It’s Your Destiny” and “Black Water Falls” give way to crystalline ambient passages (“City Reprise,” “The Animator,” “Come For It”) that accentuate the gravity of Granduciel’s lyrics, all draped in the same candy-painted, sepia-toned veneer that’s depicted on the album cover (a photo taken by Granduciel while on tour in Spain). Double vinyl pressing released by Secretly Canadian, includes code for digital download.

• double vinyl pressing
• printed inner sleeves
• digital download included
• music label: Secretly Canadian 2011

reviewed by big dumb man 05/2018