Destroyer "Trouble in Dreams" (Merge)
By Tim Bugbee
Friday. May 09, 6:39 PM
The troubadour continues to turn out fine pop.

About the only thing I knew about Dan Bejar before spinning this disc is that he was the dark/wiry-haired guy who would periodically trudge down the backstage steps @ The Roxy, glass of red wine in hand, and join the stage full of New Pornographers for a song or two behind a mic before retreating back from whence he came, presumably in search of the bottle. I was a bit surprised to see that he's got more than a decade and eight records as Destroyer, with nary a whiff of Paul Stanley fetish or death metal to be found. His stock in trade is pop, and he turns out a tightly packaged, well-apportioned product. There's a bit of a Jimmy Flemion (The Frogs) crossed with David Bowie vocal going on (Dean Wareham hangs heavy over opener "Blue Flower/Blue Flame"), and if you squint your ears hard enough, the dulcet pop sounds of classic NZ bands such as Sneaky Feelings and The Chills will make themselves very identifiable. The joyful repetitive guitar figure in "My Favorite Year" belies the shithouse he refers to. Perhaps that was the year he left it; fond memories indeed. Things go a bit sideways, if not backward with the next song, a ponderous eight-minute trudge peppered with the equivalent of indie rock scat singing. To be fair, when you run into a song title like "Shooting Rockets From the Desk of Night's Ape," it's not like there are no hints given.

The troubadour aspect continues a bit more, but is in tolerable check for the most part. "Leopard of Honor" is a real treat, the Procol Harum keyboards matching nicely with the guitar line and chords, twining around each other like thick kudzu around a veranda in the damp, sweaty post-war South. The other high point for me is when Bejar shoves his dog-eared, scribble-filled notebooks to floor and unleashes a great vocal to match the verve and kick of the band on "Dark Leaves Form a Thread": i swear Kurihara could be manning the tremolo bar. Fine stuff. This record doesn't inscribe "DESTROYER FAN" on my skin, but it piques my interest enough to know he knows his way around a song, and I think I'll check out some prior work.
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Tim Bugbee

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