Destroyer
Kaputt
Merge
2011
Rating: 8 sudden endings out of 10
I've been listening to Destroyer so long, I don't even really know how to review it. Destroyer has become a touchstone for other reviews, like a basic building block of life. How do you review helium or carbon or unununium? They just are. Destroyer just is.
I guess you compare it to other Destroyer records. It's not really like anything else he has released, but it doesn't feel out of place in his catalog either. The main man behind the band, Dan Bejar, has moved through a few different phases in his career. He started with off-kilter folk aka "albums I don't listen to very much", and then around "Thief" he started exploring his glam-pop David Bowie/T-Rex side. This culminated in his best work "Streethawk: A Seduction", a collection of some the greatest pop songs of the last 25 years. Then he decided to make a synth-pop record all by himself with "Your Blues", and then later re-recorded some of those songs live with Frog Eyes for the "Notorious Lightening" EP (my second favorite release, if you're keeping count). After that, it was a slow transition through a couple of records to the mature-yet-experimental adult pop that is "Kaputt".
Outside of "Savage Night at the Opera", there aren't a lot of hooks here like with most of Destroyer's records. These songs are slow burners, taking multiple listens before they worm their way into your brain like a case of herpes left untreated. It's a record for late-night solo drives down country roads, just you and one musical madman's musings. He ends the release with the song "Bay of Pigs" from the self-titled EP from 2009, an eleven minute long self-described "ambient disco" track that perfectly bleeds out of this sophisticated pop opus. And bleeds back into it, if you're listening to it on repeat like I have been.
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