Archive for Friday, April 4, 2008
CD review for Destroyer, "Trouble in Dreams"
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Destroyer
Steamboat Springs — "Trouble in Dreams"
If you've heard anything by The New Pornographers, the eighth release from Destroyer - the main project of New Porn songwriter Dan Bejar - will carry a lot of friendly tones.
But unlike almost all output from his Canadian power-pop supergroup, Bejar's "Trouble in Dreams" is not a friendly album.
That's not to say Bejar's natural sense of downtrodden joy isn't at work here - "Trouble in Dreams" just takes a little longer to get around to that. Even when the tempos pick up and the pulsing pianos kick in, the topics here stay with loneliness and lost love. It's all a little more sweeping than Bejar's side work, and often to better effect. He's a more believable lyricist when he's talking to the lower half of the emotional spectrum.
Turns out, Bejar is troubled. That's up in the air, but likely, until about halfway through his third track, "The State," which uses blues guitar riffs and battering-ram drums to get its point across. That point being: the state is tearing the narrator apart.
In the end, Destroyer is weary, but hopeful, about being a total wreck.
Rating: '''
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