(Dead Oceans)Dan Bejar seems to be channelling superficially shiny 80s pop but beneath the surface of this off-beam album lingers a similar sense of alarm
It’s not intended as snark or faint praise when I describe Destroyer as very much an acquired taste. It’s more a statement of fact. Singer-songwriter Dan Bejar, who more or less is Destroyer, has a hefty cult following, who have accompanied him through the series of baffling stylistic shifts that have constituted Destroyer’s career to date: come for the abstruse lo-fi racket of We’ll Build Them a Golden Bridge, stay for the 13-minute disco workout on Bay of Pigs, or the ambient collaboration with Tim Hecker, Archer on the Beach. They’ve even invented a Destroyer drinking game: take a shot whenever Bejar hits on one of the overarching lyrical themes they insist give coherence and uniformity to his oeuvre. Drink if there’s a reference to
fire or other disaster; drink twice for mention of an apocalypse.