Destroyer: This Night : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

As a founding member of the New Pornographers, Vancouver's own supergroup, songwriter Dan Bejar has seen his star rise in the last two years. With focus now shifting to Destroyer, his primary band founded seven years ago, Bejar delivers an inventive collection of tunes for his Merge debut. The sparse rock & roll skank of "Hey Snow White" unfolds into a cathartic garage anthem, but most often Destroyer deal in atmospherics. Warm keyboards infiltrate the jazzy pop of "Students Carve Hearts Out of Coal," while the blissfully melodic "Here Comes the Night" is both contagious and unique. While Behar's singing style has a Bowie-like drama on a number of cuts ("Makin' Angels," "The Relevant Ballads"), his reedy pipes are actually closer to Al ("Year of the Cat") Stewart. And the dreamy, expansive title cut restores the allure of syllable-driven ("Shoo-Be-Doo-Wah") refrains, making This Night high art in an era of lowbrow rock.

JOHN D. LUERSSEN
(October 8, 2002)