It’s like this: You’ve just gotten home from a long night out on the town. You’ve made your rounds and you’ve had fun but now you’re just trying to take a load off. You unlock the door, open it then close it behind you, walk into your wood paneled study and plop yourself down into your favorite leather lounger. Being that it’s probably 1981, you use your clapper to drop the needle to the record on your record deck. The sound of an orchestra saunters out of your hi-fi and caresses your world-weary heart.
Dan Bejar of Destroyer is a musical chameleon of sorts. His breakthrough, Kaputt, focused heavily on lounge ready, saxophone and keyboard drenched music for adults in adult situations. It was easy and mellow, made you think of stars. A couple records before that he was a little heavier, much more guitar and bombast. This new record, Poison Season, almost meets those two in the middle. There’s enough heavy rhythm and guitar here to keep you awake but there are also enough saxophone and weary vocals to keep you interested.
The first track is a chamber romp with a full blown orchestra and then track two bursts in and calls to mind Springsteen’s epic songwriting of his Born To Run album. A lot of the songs are pretty mellow, slow cookers, but they cook nonetheless. “Midnight Meet the Rain” mixes things up and comes on like some sort of 1970s cop show theme all percussion and sizzling guitar licks. The vocals will remind most people of David Bowie. Bejar’s a crooner with a voice that is a deeper version of Maryanne Faithful’s wobbly croak. Stay away if you are looking for something that will grab you and get you in the mood for a basketball game, please listen if you want to hear a solid, dreamy album that feels like a warm blanket.
Recommended If You Like: Al Stewart (Year of the Cat/Time Passages), David Bowie (Hunky Dory/Young Americans), Bruce Springsteen (Born to Run)
Recommended Tracks: 2 (Dream Lover Edited), 3 (Forces From Above), 7 (Times Square), 9 (Midnight Meet the Rain), 11 (Bangkok)
Do Not Play: 2 (Dream Lover)
Written by PJ Moon on 09/02/2015