Destroyer: Trouble In Dreams : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Like Neko Case, his bandmate in the New Pornographers, Destroyer's Dan Bejar has a solo career that's gone from sideshow to headliner. His latest seals the deal. Bejar's affection for early-Seventies glam — especially T. Rex and Bowie, when proto-punk canoodled with prog-rock fantasy flights — remains deep. But he's filtered his cribbing through an indie rocker's sense of humor and a poet's love of language.

"Caution — hot ashes‚/ The girl says to her first kiss," he begins on "Shooting Rockets," with guitarist Nicolas Bragg sending up notes like fireworks with every existential punch line ("My soul pukes the night away. . . . Off, treacherous bliss, off!"). The arrangements, with acoustic strumming, organ, parlor-room piano, even a low-fi harpsichord break ("The State"), conjure old-world vibes. But electric guitars and synthesizers howl in uneasy tribute to the present. "I've been living in America in churches of greed/It's sick!" Bejar declaims in the Pavement-esque "Dark Leaves Form a Thread." He resolves to stick it out anyway: "No, it's cool/You go, I'll stay/Perfectly at home with this dread." Join the club, pal.