Destroyer/Dboy
Destroyer
Have We Met // Merge
With a catalog that has spanned nearly two and a half decades and features exactly zero bad releases, everybody expected that Dan Bejar’s latest release as “Destroyer” would be great. Working with longtime friend and frequent collaborator John Collins, the multi-instrumentalist and engineer behind Bejar’s best records, there was no reason to expect that it wouldn’t. Even standing against the quality of his extensive back catalog, Have We Met is indisputably one of the Vancouverite’s best records yet.
While he has lost none of the nocturnal sleeknesses that made earlier works like Kaputt so definitive, this new release reflects a man who has matured in his musical career - This record tells us that he fully understands what makes his music great. The authenticity that has drawn contemporary crowds since Destroyer’s Rubies has never rung truer than here.
With the sweeping arrangements that open the record with “Crimson Tide”, the synthesizers etch out the nocturnal scene: Bejar conjures the excitement of late-night transit, of city lights rushing past en route to a night of pure joy. A sudden shift in pace to the serene “Kinda Dark” changes the record’s tone from expansive to beautifully intimate.
Tracks like “It Just Doesn’t Happen” demonstrate Bejar’s capacity for developing the most technically incredible soundscapes from the simplest melodies. The remorse-laden lyrical transparency of his stream-of-consciousness delivery is where he reveals himself the most openly. The overwhelmingly concise delivery of his poetry has only sharpened. Having recorded all of his vocals into a laptop at his kitchen table, the authenticity of his words stands out.
On “The Raven”, the ever-expansive synths elevate the laser-beam precise guitar tones that once defined Destroyer’s sound to a new level. “Cue Synthesizer” juggles slow grooves and killer hooks while giving a nod to the minimalist 1980’s hip-hop beats that inspired Bejar’s instrumentals. His lyrics on this track are at their most literal - and they are some of his most compelling yet.
The record’s title track occupies a beautiful, lonely universe of its very own. For (a too-short) three minutes, a single guitar describes the blood, anguish, and turmoil of a lifetime of creation. Bejar’s technical strength as a musician is revealed - it’s the capacity to pour the whole of one’s artistic being into a few notes. This sometimes noodling, impossibly simple melody conveys the authenticity of his artistic power in a heart-wrenching few notes.
At its heart, Have We Met is a revelation of a man who has utilized his lifetime of experience to perfect the balance between transparency and poignancy.
- Connor MacDonald
Dboy
New Records in Human Power // Dine Alone Records
Emerging from a drunk punks’ wildest fantasies comes, New Records in Human Power- an homage to punk’s authentic mania, blended with a modern frenzy that leaves listeners totally engrossed with a breathless energy.
Gripping and all captivating, Dboy presents an album that demands their own space and style within the expanding genre, raising the bar for anyone who dares to follow. Forceful drum crashes compete with eager vocals, and classically overdriven guitar, to create a passionate rage signature to the gimp-masked and satin-clad punks of Dboy. Hectic and bewitching, the album finds the most manic yet eager spots of every listener’s psyche and digs its claws in deep.
With no time to rest the twelve track album curates a restless energy that transports one to a live show feeling; fervent, impassioned, and ecstatic. Wasting no time over-glorifying the already sharp riffs and lyrical punches, each song produces a rebirth of intensity. Powerful guitar solos accent the ferocious calamity of rousing, yet gritty vocals, while brazen and pronounced bass lines solidify all the pieces of its perfect chaos.
Exposing audenices to a vivid and forthright fragment of what they’re capable of, and what it really means to be a ‘Dboy’, the all-powerful punk-rock trio design a burning desire to see what comes next. Unforgiving and uncompromising, Dboy declares a new sense of ruthlessness within New Records in Human Power.
- Jackie Klapak
