Now its 1987 all the time...

Dan Bejar eh? I saw him play in a gunge-soaked carpeted bingo hall at ATP a few years ago, and really didn't think 'owt of him at all. Well, not much except this guy seems a bit up his own hole and has an awful dose of sinusitus. I have a terrible tendency to do that, to instantly turn my nose up at something new with a simplifying smart comment. This often leads to me pulling an opinion u-turn and eating my shitty words months later. Such came to be the case with Destroyer, Bejar's band. But come on, I think my early dismissal of him is fair enough given initial impressions. He does always sing like something from a sudafed ad, and he constantly references his older songs in his newer ones. This makes many of them feel like postmodern wormholes full of mirrored Dan Bejars checking each other out and complimenting each other.


Help! I'm trapped inside a destroyer song.

In addition to this self-obsession, he often over-eggs the pudding with bookish digressions and clunky metaphors that flap all over his albums waiting to be put out of their misery. But, in spite of all this... when he's good, he's great! And that's because of the music itself. He plays around with a number of styles on his many albums and side projects, but to me his best work has the buzz of classic 70s and 80s guitar rock playing through an old AM radio. It echoes and reverberates from some dreamed up corner of his imagination where its "1987 all the time". Although the melodic structure is quite different, the production values of a lot of Destroyer's work remind me so much of the shins second album, which jingle-jangled in a similar evocative way. I think Bejar's gifts are best demonstrated on his last album Destroyer's Rubies. This is an essential album. ESSENTIAL. And in spite of more than a few exasperating lyrical flourishes there are moments of pure poetry. I have high hopes for the forthcoming release, trouble in dreams. Going on the strength of the released MP3 Foam Hands, I've good faith its gonna deliver the goods.

Here are two painting related songs off Destroyers Rubies, one was on LoLomix 5!

MP3:Destroyer-Watercolours into the ocean
MP3:Destroyer-European Oils