Poison Season - Destroyer (2015)

Dan Bejar is a part of several bands, including the long-running Canadian Indie supergroup New Pornographers. But Destroyer is his primary solo outlet, and you can really track his development as an artist through more than 20 years of these releases.

This one is as low-key as all of them, but has a kind of nastiness to the lyrics and a subtle polish to the arrangements that aren’t on a lot of his other albums. Lyrically the record is a street-level tour through the less attractive parts of life in New York City, and it gets a lot of mileage from some of Lou Reed’s more nihilistic work about the city. I’m kind of riffing, because I’ve never really been able to make much sense of Destroyer’s lyrics. I love the wordplay and the whimsy, but don’t try to pin me down about what any of it “means.”

Regardless, the chamber pop sound is a nice companion to Bejar’s crooner side, and the more rocking tracks break up the flow and keep it interesting.

Tracks I Liked

Dream Lover - sounds like a 70s Springsteen track, only filtered through Destroyer’s own quirks

Times Square - great stuff

Midnight Meet The Rain - a much more rocking track than most of the record. Snarling and tense.