Destroyer
The Best Rock Albums of 2022 (So Far)
Compared to the last couple of years, 2022 has been a bonanza of incredible rock record releases. It seems like every week there are two or three projects just begging for proper time and attention. Many artists who were kept off the road due to the pandemic and were inspired to write during their forced, sabbatical and have returned with fresh perspectives and new sounds. Then there were those who held back some of their best material to wait and see how the state of the world shook out. However they got to 2022, and it’s a joy to finally begin to hear these legitimately righteous records. It’s probably a little too soon for me to declare an absolute favorite album out of the bunch we’ve gotten so far. It’s been such an eclectic year for rock albums, with artists of every stripe truly del...
Labyrinthitis Is All About Destroyer Having Fun
Destroyer’s latest album, Labyrinthitis, started out as a dance record. It would have been “just like Donna Summer’s greatest hits,” frontman Dan Bejar explained in the album’s press materials. The Vancouver-based indie-rock outfit hasn’t exactly shied away from grooves before, but Bejar often suffuses those grooves with his own sardonic twist. It creates a set of expectations that Destroyer rarely strays from, refining their music à la Beach House or The War on Drugs, contemporaries who are often tagged with the “consistent” label that signifies unsurprising greatness. Now, with 13 albums under its belt, Destroyer is a legacy act, and Bejar has largely stuck to his formula of satiric lyrics and new-wave sonics that fans are well familiar with at this point. But that doesn’t mean he can’t ...
Destroyer Details New Album, Unveils ‘Eat the Wine, Drink the Bread’
Gearing up for their forthcoming album, Destroyer released the new single “Eat the Wine, Drink the Bread.” The track follows the previously released “Tintoretto, It’s For You.” Both songs are off Labyrinthitis, which is slated for release on March 25. Frequent Destroyer collaborator John Collins lent a hand with the tracks on the album, which was mainly written in 2020 and recorded the following spring. Some of the record’s initial song ideas were influenced by disco, Art of Noise, and New Order. Labyrinthitis is available for pre-order on CD, LP, and vinyl. In further support of the record, Destroyer is scheduled to tour beginning this spring. They’ll kick off mid-April in Vancouver and close mid-May in Portland, Ohio. Destroyer, 2022 Labyrinthitis Track List 1. It’s in Y...
Destroyer Returns With Catchy Yet Ominous ‘Tintoretto, It’s For You’
Destroyer, the experimental rock project by Dan Bejar, released the first song from its forthcoming album, Labyrinthitis, out on March 25 via Merge. “Tintoretto, It’s for You” is propelled by a chilling piano-and-drum arrangement that rises and falls around Bejar’s eerie incantations (“Do you remember the mythic beast?”). The album is available for preorder here. In the accompanying music video for “Tintoretto,” the mysticism of Bejar’s lyrics is felt in the video direction by David Galloway. The video shows scenes of everyday neighborhood sights, contrasted with moody lighting portray a tone of familiar isolation, reminiscent of early lockdown when the album was written and produced by Bejar and his frequent collaborator, John Collins. “I had an idea of writing a couple of lines on ...
