Destroyer - Trouble In Dreams

Of all the North American male misfits that have dominated the blogosphere since the turn of the century - of which I include such celebrated voices as D.C. Berman, Spencer Krug, John Darnielle, Colin Meloy, Jeff Magnum - it’s the output of Dan Bejar AKA Destroyer that has arguably confounded the most. Since his critically lauded (a Pitchfork “Top 100 albums of the 90s” place no less), but pretty much impossible to find debut City of Daughters in 1998, Destroyer has consistently released a series of twisted, opulent and slightly arcane long players that have often careered off down unexpected and occasionally outright weird paths. Somewhat unfairly, up until 2006’s Rubies, for all the merits of this not insubstantial canon of work, Destroyer hadn’t been met with quite the same widespread reverence as Bejar’s other band, New Pornographers. Following the hyperventilating critical plaudits hoisted on the aforementioned Rubies, and now signed to Rough Trade, focus at last seems to have shifted on to Bejar himself. As is typical from such a wilfully obtuse character, Trouble In Dreams astounds and frustrates in equal measure.

Bejar is clearly a Dylan fan and not the kind of Dylan that constitutes The Best 60s Album Ever or list show recollections. We’re talking more Street Legal than Times They Are A’ Changing. The warble in his divisive voice is a clue, but his love for language displayed in his fruity vignettes and the unpredictable song cycles the biggest giveaway. It’s free association beat poetry free of the pot stench. Bejar waltzes and chirps his way through memorable couplets and cryptic allusions like an Ivy League lecturer. The song titles alone read like chapter titles from some unpublished 19th Century Eastern European novel. If his subject matter is a little esoteric and the metaphors not exactly immediately apparent, there’s no denying the emotional pull of lines like “I’m not the kind to tell you want is true and what is totally out of control” from the album’s most straight-up ballad “Foam Hands”, harnessed to a shimmying guitar and whistle driven coda. Real joy may reside in the performance itself rather than the obtuse lyrics, but if he’s feigning sincerity he’s at least the equal to the actors that often constitute his subject matter.

While Bejar is perhaps best known for his lyrical prowess and rightly so, as there’s hardly a cliché in sight, the ornate instrumentation and lush production are the understated stars of the show here. Album centre pieces “My Favourite Year” and “Shooting Rockets (From The Desk of Night’s Ape)” best display this; the former driven by a cyclical guitar riff and motorik drumming, the latter a Dylan-esque stream of conscious flow and swirling keys that lays testament to Bejar’s carnivorous appropriation of pop music forms.

If nothing else, Bejar has been incredibly efficient in his recorded output, even finding time between both Destroyer and New Pornographers to release an album with Cacey Mercer and Spencer Krug under the Swan Lake moniker. Quite remarkably, quality control has remained resolutely high throughout his career trajectory and Bejar is generally not begat of the same inconsistencies that plague similarly prolific artists, such as Ryan Adams, not that the two are especially sonically comparable. While Trouble in Dreams doesn’t exactly represent an artistic mis-step as such, here Bejar plays it comparatively straight, his famed turns of phrase not quite as biting or studiously affecting as on the career highpoint of 2004s Your Blues, though still great enough to shame many a pretender to the ‘indie outcast’ de rigeur throne.

By no means a pop record - Bejar does still tend to eschew traditional verse chorus structures - there’s an element to these songs that displays a lineage with North American lofi/indie conventions whereas past releases have seen him wander off into his own prog-like wonderland. This is not to say that he’s exhausted his ideas, but rather that his sonic eccentricities have perhaps been lived-out sufficiently via Swan Lake (and what a bizarre album that was) and his pure pop instincts exorcised in New Pornographers so as to leave Trouble In Dreams rather ‘normal’ by comparison. I've always felt that Bejar's records need to be lived -in for a while to be fully appreciated, but this time the merits appear to be revealed a little too quickly and a little to slightly. When Bejar sings “I saw you in Swan Lake, you were great”, I’m inclined to turn the compliment back on him. I only wish he’d carried a few more of those same weird impulses into Trouble In Dreams.