Destroyer - Have We Met

Pitchfork 85

On his masterful new album, Dan Bejar moves like a ghost through his familiar and inscrutable universe.

The Guardian 0

(Dead Oceans)
Dan Bejar seems to be channelling superficially shiny 80s pop but beneath the surface of this off-beam album lingers a similar sense of alarm

It’s not intended as snark or faint praise when I describe Destroyer as very much an acquired taste. It’s more a statement of fact. Singer-songwriter Dan Bejar, who more or less is Destroyer, has a hefty cult following, who have accompanied him through the series of baffling stylistic shifts that have constituted Destroyer’s career to date: come for the abstruse lo-fi racket of We’ll Build Them a Golden Bridge, stay for the 13-minute disco workout on Bay of Pigs, or the ambient collaboration with Tim Hecker, Archer on the Beach. They’ve even invented a Destroyer drinking game: take a shot whenever Bejar hits on one of the overarching lyrical themes they insist give coherence and uniformity to his oeuvre. Drink if there’s a reference to fire or other disaster; drink twice for mention of an apocalypse.

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