A few years back I went to see The War On Drugs' set at the Latitude Festival, solely on the strength of them being described as a cross between Springsteen and My Bloody Valentine.
In retrospect that sounds a terrible combo. A Shields shoegazey version of Thunder Road would be awful as would a New Jersey vocal on Soon. Inevitably, not only did the band fail to sound like this, I also found them a bit dull on the day and I haven't paid attention since.
This week though, on the strength of repeated mentions on my Twitter timeline I've been listening to their latest album, Lost In The Dream.
It's outstanding. There's some 80's rock in there - the guitars on some tracks like An Ocean In Between The Waves are very Knopflery - and there's plenty of Americana 'Classic Rock' influences.
A male vocal rock band with an early candidate for my album of the year™. Who'd have thought.