On its own, "Sky's Grey" is better than most albums that were produced this year:
Sky's grey
Call for rain
Everyday
You cancel the parade
Give up acting, [heck] no!
I'm just starting to get the good parts
Walk into a room and everything just clicks
Bombs in the city, plays in the sticks
Bombs in the city, plays in the sticks
Bombs in the city, plays in the sticks
Dan Bejar's theatrical performance on the riveting opener belies the world-weary sadness of it all, notwithstanding the vivid guitar postlude. He articulates the bombed-out phrases with unique emphases, as if each time he is still weighing their heft in his mind and considering their truthfulness. Bejar says, "I know it's not a rager in any sense, but it's the one that feels closest to my heart lyrically. When I sing it, I feel it."
On Destroyer's 12th album, ken, our inscrutable bard attempts to answer this self-proposed question: "How could a decrepit-sounding voice sing in a dark, New Romantic world?" Well, he does it first by writing his most direct and compact songs to date; ken is arguably the first pop-rock record of his career. Musically, Bejar deepens his use of the dark synthscapes trailing from the vapors of masterpiece Kaputt. Melodic grays and purples permeate the material because he was inspired by the sound and tone of The Cure's records -- the drums, the guitars, and the basslines all have that enigmatic quality. It is a solemn marriage, as the military rhythms, apocalyptic synth tones, and New Wave guitars suit Bejar's distinctive gravel, veiling the songs with a Disintegration-style grandeur.
Bejar is our Virgil, as always, this time navigating hospital wards, pirate dens, and lonely catwalks, breathing cinematic life into modernity and its portentious end. Halfway through "Tinseltown Swimming in Blood," the wizened shaman leans in for a confession:
Now let me tell you about the dream:
I had no feeling, I had no past
I was the arctic, I was the vast
Spaces without reprieve
I was a dreamer
Watch me leave
It feels like a personal Waterloo -- the moment things became too much for a distracted man who was simply "off in the corner doing poet's work." Admittedly blind, Virgil now urges leaving the emptiness and the tinseled facades. But the Romans keep doing as they do, swept away by a rotting culture, repeating the same mistakes despite the warning signs. The empire is going to pot and here they are eating, drinking, and merrying into the early morning hours.
Where will you be when the ruin comes?
Where will you be when the ruin comes?
No comments:
Post a Comment