The Dominant Theme in a Number of Places

Your Blood / Destroyer (2006)

No Cease Fires (Crimes... Baby) / Destroyer (1998)

Idea 18 / Destroyer (1996)

FINALLY. Finally: Destroyer's Rubies comes out tomorrow, featuring ten new tracks penned by Dan Bejar. All ten are good; seven are great. They've been listened to and written about already, so I'll spare you for the most part. The best description of the full album can be read at Popsheep, which also had some crazyrare Bejar demos up for grabs. They've removed "Idea 18," so here it is again. DB2 sings, "You tread water while I read the history of water." DB1 retorts, "All water is classic water."

Bejar's band, Destroyer, though both intelligent and sensational, is not to be confused with the professional wrestler who calls himself The Intelligent Sensational Destroyer (see Figures 1 & 2, which must be clicked on to be appreciated fully). That Destroyer is apparently big in Japan. He has his own bobblehead doll, wrote a book about himself, and released a Christmas album on which he sings "Jingle Bells" (half in Japanese). The Destroyer we're concerned with just has a bunch of albums. I guess there's no need for a Bejar bobblehead as his real head is already big enough.

That's probably why his songs are so good and so dense: his head is physically capable of harboring a huge number of obsessions simultaneously. The best thing about these obsessions is that while Bejar is often tagged as being ironic, he is so completely fixated on the subject matter he treats wryly that the obsessions themselves becomes genuine. The real crown jewels...

Track 1: Rubies
Obsession: meaning
Quote: Cast myself towards infinity / Trust me, I have my reasons

Track 2: Your Blood
Obsession: himself
Quote: Never had a chance / Never had to choose "Your Blood" versus Your Blues

Track 3: European Oils
Obsession: music, crimesagainstthestateofourlove
Quote: When I'm at war I insist on slaughter / And getting it on with the hangman's daughter

Track 4: Painter in Your Pocket
Obsession: words
Quote: Where did you get that line? / Where did you get that look? / Where did you get that penchant for destruction in the way you talk?

Track 5: Looter's Follies
Obsession: art, melodrama, European history
Quote: That month: another version of this miniature Rome / To set fire to / Why did we stop fucking around? / You girls like gazelles / Raise boys wearing bells / Blaze new trails in sound!

Track 6: 3000 Flowers
Obsession: literature, poetry, modernism
Quote: One-hundredth of a wet black bough // I was Clytæmnestra on a good day

Track 7: A Dangerous Woman Up to a Point
Obsession: mythologizing
Quote: Hey, your friends are fucked /In-so-far as your friend's an ancient beast bronzed in tar // Have I told you lately that I love you? / Did I fail to mention there's a sword hanging above you?

Track 8: Priest's Knees
Obsession: music, Maximalism
Quote: And I was just another West Coast Maximalist / Exploring the blues, ignoring the news from the front

Track 9: Water Colours Into the Ocean
Obsession: women
Quote: Too thin, too fair, downing your third drink / Standing at arm's-length in the square

Track 10: Sick Priest Learns to Last Forever
Obsession: religion, history, the music scene
Quote: Molly begets herself / She plans a merger with The Scene // To make it legal, Wilhelm's bride goes bulemic at the feast