Most helpful customer reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
New sounds, yet stamped all over with Bejar's mastery, May 2 2004
Dan Bejar never ceases to [expletive] me. The man is mad, and I love it. He is to music what Charlie Kaufman is to film, yet I love his original stamps of work and find them oddly close to my heart. The lyrics bite you on the lips after enticing you to kiss them. Bejar's voice, clear as a one-sided mirror. Destroyer at its catchiest and most eccentric best, the album is refreshingly clean in sound, yet more romantic and hollow-haunting than "This Night" and "Streethawk: A Seduction."The more there's not to get, the more you're magnetically drawn into Bejar's black holes. Just let it flow or let it go. This music is like nothing else, beyond organic. Without being pretentious, Destroyer sends out signals, bleeps from aliens, that life out there is more nirvanic than what exists here. So far, I've only listened to it 3 times, but I love it. This one's a keeper.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Jarring and Fantastic, Mar 20 2004
OK, I'm a superfan. That said, when I first heard songs on this album, I was disappointed, I was thinking this was going to be "This Night" part II, fantastic at points, but as a whole left wanting. After I finally got the entire album and gave it a few spins, I have to say that I was wrong with my initial judgment. This album is just too much to get in a single listen, in that way it is more like "Streethawk: A Seduction". I started out with a couple of songs that were accessible. "Its Gonna Take an Airplane", with a sing song melody, synth flute, and hushed vocals found it's way inside my head almost instantly. The song "Your Blues" contains a signature coda, with the repeated plea "Lord know's I've been trying" over a background of synth, muted Coronet, and delayed piano, again it's infectious. After I had tackled the accessible ones, other more obtuse songs started to rise up and force me to take notice. "Notorious Lightning" is a standout, posing scenes of young players and their frivolities, with the music building to an anthemic shout of "and someone has to fall, before someone goes free!", possibly freed from the bonds of their immaturity. In many ways it reminds me of Streethawk's absolutely brilliant "The Bad Arts", except Bejar now realizes there is no need for an actual explosion. The instrumentation of the album is limited to synths and a nylon stringed guitar, which at times give the album a feeling that it came from 1984 not 2004, "Certain Things You Ought to Know" could have replaced The Dream Academy's version of "Please Please Please" on the Ferris Bueller's soundtrack. Once again Bejar lyrically drops props to those that came before him, in this one we get from my untrained ears... Fleetwood Mac, The Smiths, and possibly Elvis Presley by way of the Pet Shop Boys, and Willie Nelson.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
More great stuff from Bejar, Mar 17 2004
Really good album. He incorporates orchestra synth sounds alot which makes this album very dynamic, so get out your nice headphones or play this sucker through your audio/home theater setup so you can hear it all. You won't hear any up-beat rocking stuff here, but this album certainly won't put you to sleep (like parts of "This Night" did for me, natch). If you're a Destroyer fan, you know that you never know what to expect...always a surprise, and this album is no different. **Warning to any New Pornographers fans....get this album if you want to hear something interesting/different/awesome, but don't get it if you want to hear songs like Bejar contributes to tNP. Same genius. Different direction.
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