Destroyer's Rubies
Merge, 2006
rating: 4/5
reviewer: jay


Digital opinions on this album aren't exactly in short supply these days. Some fans have championed it as Bejar's greatest achievement; others have called it a "Destroyer's greatest hits" album. Despite both camps being wrong, everybody's certainly doing their part to make this the most talked-about Destroyer record, and there's a feeling that they're all embracing the long-awaited palatability of a Destroyer Merge release as the band's opportunity to invade the iPods of the Arcade Fire crowd. Your Blues was of course wonderful, but not exactly designed for mass consumption – folks would have had a lot of catching up to do.

I hear "Painter in Your Pocket" has become something of a 'single' on Canadian radio, an obvious and lamentable choice that spells the worst for Destroyer's Rubies. Its flat, 192kbps sheen and predictable tract might make it the most disposable four minutes of the album, but we all know the marketability of mediocrity; here is perhaps the most certain, discernable Chorus that Bejar has penned, and my money says you may not even hear the beautiful, incongruous first 30 seconds on any airwaves.

All of this is to say that the experience of this album takes place in a disruptively invasive commercial context, and this compels me to consider it from a consumer perspective. At odds with this is the very personal relationship with Destroyer that I share with so many people. In other words, I'm hearing two albums.

The first Destroyer's Rubies is the one you pick up on a whim from the 'Hip' rack at Border's, further intrigued by the curious sticker that reads "Destroyer is a band. This is the new Destroyer album," which you find complementary to the cultural disaffection you've been auditioning lately.

This album is not going to give you what you're after. You will most likely conclude that it banally parallels music that is vaguely familiar, and consider it a misstep when it doesn't…you may even call it "abrasive," "contrived," or "overhyped" (all three of which it is). It is by no means "cool."

It's not that the rest of us are cutting Bejar an indefinite length of slack, exactly; but until you've developed a certain sympathy for him, you're not communicating in the same terms. Which is what makes Destroyer's Rubies such a dangerous album. Mind you, I'm not asking that Destroyer only get increasingly alienating. What I am saying is that this isn't indie fodder, and treating it as such will only promote misunderstanding.

To address the "greatest hits" accusation – there are many obvious revisitations to the sensibilities of previous albums. It is spacious and reposed like This Night; private and careful like Streethawk; extravagant and audacious like Your Blues. But it is also many things that those albums are not, and any illusion of "recycling" is only an accident of its being the most recent release.

Almost everything Destroyer records is the sound of a struggle, and Destroyer's Rubies might be the most endearing confession to date. 2002's This Night and especially 2004's Your Blues had a liberating sense to them; one got the feeling that Bejar couldn't have been happier than when performing things like "Hey, Snow White" or "What Road." And after his bizarre sojourn into the MIDIfied transgressions of traditional rock instrumentation and the subsequent tour that siphoned them through Frog Eyes' frenetic prism, he now faces the inevitable and sobering return, shat out by the wringer he put himself through.

There are some really revealing moments here, despite the album's deceptively pristine surface. The beginning of "European Oils" exemplifies Rubies' underlying nature. Abruptly ringing out with those ragtimey piano chords and settling into an easy pace, it's a satisfying introduction that leads into Bejar's dreamy "I……," which hangs for a moment in the air before tumbling into "made a tomb for all the incompatible cells I could take/ and I……" At that moment, you can hear the edges of the song corralling him in, but it isn't too long before the dizzying vertigo of that chorus of syllables and reverb and cascading piano arpeggios take over – until the drums put their foot down and everything relaxes again ("I……"), the performers practically giggling at what they were almost able to get away with.

This Night seemed to shatter structure entirely, leaving Bejar to trample freely on its shards. Here he's confronting it head-on, taunting it, pulling the wool over its eyes, leading it on, trying to run circles around it and seize it by the tail – all while glibly paying it crass favors like "Sick Priest," a song you can hardly say he wrote and which comes off almost as the fulfillment of a dare (in the complete opposite vein of Your Blues' dare, to be sure). In fact, Rubies finds him being a real sonuvabitch on more than one occasion; lines like "It was that jewel-encrusted roan/ Getting in my face," or the more oblique Your Blues send-up "I felt the need to be brief/ I stuck a rose between my teeth/ And had a laugh," so vulgarly flaunt his self-awareness that you can't help but curse him, which is exactly what he wants.

It's a mischievous outing, but one with a touch of melancholy. The seven-minute centerpiece "Looters' Follies" has him urging himself: "Kid, you better change your feathers/ Cause you'll never fly with those things," questioning (undoubtedly not for the first time) the integrity of the "wings" he'd "sewn on rock 'n' roll" with This Night, and continuing, "In These Nights/ The boys sing/ 'Hello, emptiness!'" over the 3/4-time of scintillating piano chords and a woozy baritone sax. Later in the same song he sobs, "I swear somewhere the truth lies within this wood/ I swear Looters' Follies has never sounded so good/ And win or lose/ What's the difference?"

All self-examination aside, there's a lot of substance here. Vocally, he has rarely been more on point, and the instrumental ensemble is sound and uniquely Rubiesian. "Watercolours Into the Ocean" closes the curtain on this album with a reassuringly confident poignancy: "Some situations seek redress/ Some songs just go – 'testing, testing…'/ I took a picture: I was sick of motion…/ And wore her watercolours into the ocean…"

Destroyer's Rubies isn't the sound of giving up, but that it is is Bejar's fear. And yes, often it is the sound of that fear. But like any solid relationship, there's a source of strength in this disclosure of secret vulnerabilities. We're not about to abandon Destroyer anytime soon.

1. Rubies
2. Your Blood
3. European Oils
4. Painter In Your Pocket
5. Looters' Follies
6. 3000 Flowers
7. A Dangerous Woman Up To A Point
8. Priest's Knees
9. Watercolours Into the Ocean
10. Sick Priest Learns to Last Forever

Notorious Lightning and Other Works EP
Merge, 2005
rating: 3.5/5
reviewer: keith kawaii


I like to think that my approach to Notorious Lightning and Other Works was pretty unique. As you've probably realized, the new EP reworks six songs from last year's critically acclaimed Your Blues. But here's where my approach probably differs from yours: despite several background listens, I never fully immersed myself in Your Blues to begin with. Aside from a few synth lines, nothing really stuck with me. Maybe the volume was too low, maybe I was too busy sucking on a Japanese woman's teet, who knows. Whatever the case, I became familiar with Destroyer's mini epic via the reworkings presented here, on Notorious Lightning and Other Works. Given my relative ignorance, I hardly expected to notice such a clear difference between Notorious Lightning and the last few Destroyer albums. Suffice it to say that unless you've seen the band live recently, you probably weren't anticipating this EP.

Things kick off with lo-fi guitar strums, the instrument's bass tones rumbling beneath Daniel Bejar's familiar vocals. Then it starts to rock out and doesn't really let up for the next 20 minutes. The shift in aesthetic is startling, and we have no other than fellow indie darlings Frog Eyes (who happen to be Bejar's live band on the last tour) to thank for it. Transferring Destroyer's live show into the studio, Frog Eyes have added a huge pair of balls to Your Blues' sleek, synthetic numbers. The results are scattered and somewhat haphazard, but different enough to warrant attention, if only from die hard fans. With its completely altered approach, I found "The Music Lovers" particularly noteworthy. In the hands of Frog Eyes, the song turns into an all out cock-rock anthem, full of screeching, distorted guitar lines and wailing, nonsensical vocals. Although it's one of the better cuts, a certain spark of originality is still lost in the translation. The rest of the songs follow suit. In short, yes, the EP slams, but it does so with little stylistic variation.

Revisiting Your Blues, I now realize that Bejar's compositions are strong enough to hold up under almost any circumstance, yet the original version's glossy presentation offers up more character than a garage band interpretation. I'm still glad that I had an objective eye to cast on Notorious Lightning and Other Works, but after casting it I've reached the inevitable, somewhat lackluster conclusion: great songs, slightly unnecessary reinterpretations.

1. Notorious Lightning
2. New Ways of Living
3. The Music Lovers
4. An Actor's Revenge
5. Don't Become the Thing You Hated
6. Your Blues

Your Blues
Merge, 2004
rating: 4/5
reviewer: wolfman


I have a friend named Dave who owns seven records. Since 1996, he's managed to scrounge up enough cash to maintain and perfect his record collection to his musical standards. Mind you, Dave is a strange character, but nothing is stranger than Dave's beloved admiration of Dan Bejar, front man of the band Destroyer. In 1996, Dave bought Destroyer's We Built Them On Golden Bridge and immediately started to build one of the most peculiar, yet fascinating relationships I have ever encountered between artist and listener. Since then, Dave has collected every Destroyer album, including two New Pornographers albums that showcase the vocal talent of Bejar with Carl Newman and Neko Case. The problem is that I never hear a single track from Newman or Case at any given time of the day.

The passion and commitment grew immensely after each album release, especially in 2001 when Streethawk: A Seduction was released. Dave was ecstatic when Dan Bejar was praised and glorified by many music critics for his work on the flawless record. But when Dave heard Destroyer's follow up, This Night, he was confused and felt betrayed. This Night took away the trembling silence and filled it with a concoction of musical madness, something that was extremely uncommon to Dave and any other Destroyer fan. Gone were the shocking sadness, the musical frailty, and the gentle and hushed balladry that defined Bejar as an indie rock poet. Instead, the record was filled with catchy and soulful songs that made you tap your feet instead of listening attentively to the gripping soliloquies of our musical hero. So, many dismissed the record as a failure and no further attention was drawn to This Night.

Destroyer's new release is called Your Blues, and like its predecessor, it is filled with quirky and inventive pop songs packed with sultry harmonies and an immense level of musical intuitiveness. It could easily be called This Night II. However, the fact remains that this doesn't matter, because of Dan Bejar. And again, he continues to impress and astonish with his lyrics, creating a bond with the listener with each breath he sings. When the musical accompaniment hushes, Bejar's Bowie-like delivery breathes empathy and affection with poignant lyrics like "Don't become/ The thing you hated," and "Feeling fine/ Well it must be the wine."

Bejar doesn't need music to accompany his astonishing and bewildering lyrics. But it is refreshing to hear that his musical commitment has reached a common ground. Your Blues is a perfect continuation of Destroyer's musical path. As Bejar's contribution becomes more and more impressive, Destroyer's ability to achieve critical acclaim is up to the critic's aptitude to accept Destroyer and their distinct and impressionable sound. Give Bejar a guitar and nothing else and he can mesmerize and seduce you like no other songwriter today. That alone makes Destroyer a powerful and one of the most enjoyable bands out there.

1. Notorious Lightning
2. It's Gonna Take an Airplane
3. An Actor's Revenge
4. The Music Lovers
5. From Oakland to Warsaw
6. Your Blues
7. News Ways of Living 
8. Don't Become the Thing You Hated
9. Mad Foxes
10. The Fox and the Hound
11. What Road
12. Certain Things You Ought to Know