One of the year's most accomplished yet overlooked records...
31st January 2020
Dead Oceans
My Rating:
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8.6
/10
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REVIEW
There is a certain lyrical genius to this record, one that recalls the writing style of James Murphy, albeit with the significant advantage of Dan Bejar's superior voice. From a purely singer songwriter perspective then, Destroyer beats out LCD Soundsystem, but to continue to compare these two bands would be a misunderstanding of the two groups and their identities.As a newcomer to Destroyer, I went into this record with no preconceptions or idea of what the band would have in store for me, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by what I heard. Whilst the sonic palette that the album is built on is nothing new, or even refreshing in any sense, the often murky soundscapes are achieved in impressively minimalistic ways, keeping the focus on Dan Bejar's vocals as it should. Thankfully, the instrumentals backing these vocals are incredibly engaging, occasionally even leaping out to grab you with an unexpected guitar solo on the standout "Kinda Dark". It's moments like these that hope to elevate this album from interesting to impressive, from well written to well constructed and from good to excellent.
TRACK RATINGS (/10)
1. Crimson Tide - 9
2. Kinda Dark - 10
3. It Just Doesn't Happen - 9
4. The Television Music Supervisor - 8
5. The Raven - 8
6. Cue Synthesizer - 9
7. University Hill - 6
8. Have We Met - 7
9. The Man in Black's Blues - 9
10. foolssong - 8
BREAKDOWN
Ambition: 7
Atmosphere: 9
Catchiness/Enjoyability: 8
Content/Ideas: 9
Emotion/Engaging: 9
Execution: 8
Production: 9
Structure: 9
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Lyrics: 10
Vocals/Flows: 8
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Total: 86
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