Destroyer -
European OilsDestroyer -
Painter in Your Pocket[Links updated!]Since I'm in the middle of an ongoing, off and on, and seemingly irresolvable dispute with my partner over the merits of Destroyer, I figured I'd try to map out my defense in this recently near-dormant forum. I've been sort of obsessed with Destroyer over the past couple of months, and this obsession couldn't have come at a better time, for he's just (as in, last week) released a new album, and it's
binoculars (see two songs above).
The thing about Dan Bejar (Yes, Destroyer is a band. And yes, Destroyer is Dan Bejar. Both are true.) is that his voice is difficult to love at first, it is true. This is my dear girlfriend's main objection, and I find it difficult to dispute. I know the trouble with voices that trigger an almost visceral reaction of wtf-ness in the listener. I myself have similar objections with the Decemberists' Colin Meloy, who K has no problem with at all. But, I maintain, like cigarettes, whisky, and camel meat (I'm told), Bejar's voice, if you keep listening, and keep listening, and keep listening, will eventually bloom in your ears with untold subtleties and you - will - love - it.
It's the words that are the real reward for the Destroyer listener, though. Not the overall meaning of the songs, but the smaller meanings--the lines, the couplets, the turns of phrase, the allusions, the self-references, the swearing. And also, what might be called the texture of the language--the sound of the words.
Mr John Darnielle, from Mountain Goats, USA, sez that, on the new album, "With practically every exaggerated phrase, Bejar invokes poetic traditions unknown to all but the most sunken-eyed MFA students; everybody will claim they know what he's talking about, and almost everyone will be lying." Well fuck him for the hipster throw-down at the end there, but I think I agree with what he's saying, even though I don't claim to know what he's talking about. What he's talking about is not important. But I think I pick up the echoes of these "poetic traditions" even if I don't know the actual traditions. What's clear is that Bejar writes from a place that's pretty far away from basically all other pop songwriters I listen to. Destroyer songs have their own logic, and it's very possible to listen to a bunch of them in a row and feel like you never want to listen to anyone else.
Well, this is pretty muddled, but whatever. Listen to the songs.
Update:Shit, I didn't see
this 'til tonight.
