Destroyer’s 13th album Labyrinthitis often takes unexpected turns in the most intriguing and enjoyable ways possible.
The best part of being a Destroyer fan is having no idea what to expect when a new album comes out. Unlike Spoon and Band of Horses, Destroyer is barely recognizable from their early days, and has drifted far away from the jazz sounds that dominated their breakthrough Kaputt in 2011 and its follow up Poison Season in 2015. If any sort of musical direction could be discerned from 2020’s Have We Met, it would be a kind-of minimalist electronic sound.
But as it turns out, you can’t predict Destroyer at all. Their 13th album Labyrinthitis is all over the place, lacking any unifying theme and defying any sort of categorization. There are some dance songs, some rock songs, and some touches of baroque pop and jazz, but the album cannot be labeled as any of these genres. Much like Have We Met, this album began with frontman Dan Bejar pitching his ideas to bassist/producer/New Pornographers bandmate John Collins, who would send a completely different interpretation in return. The resulting album often takes unexpected turns in the most intriguing and enjoyable ways possible.
Labrynthitis starts out on a disarmingly conventional note, opening with the mild “It’s in Your Heart Now.” This track stretches for nearly seven minutes as delicate orchestration intertwines with a simple guitar and synthesizer melody, and Bejar’s vocals cease halfway through to let the instrumentation really shine. It’s a logical step from Have We Met, particularly its sprawling opener “Crimson Tide,” although “It’s in Your Heart Now” hints at a much fuller, lush sound. The following track “Suffer” is a fairly clear-cut rock song brimming with distorted guitar tones, pulsating synths, and a quick tempo. It’s Destroyer’s most straightforward song since “Cover from the Sun” on 2017’s ken, and sounds quite a bit like their Canadian contemporaries Broken Social Scene. These are good songs in their own right, but listeners would be forgiven for thinking “this is Destroyer, when are things going to get weird?”
The answer to that question is “exactly three tracks in” with the tour de force that is “June.” When this song begins, Bejar is singing over a kick drum beat, there’s a few licks of jazz guitar and horns, and noticeably heavy bass tones reverberate in the background. It’s the funkiest you’ve ever heard Destroyer, but just as you settle into the groove, chaos strikes. Bejar starts sing-talking as if delivering slam poetry, the bass repeats a tense riff, and then Bejar’s voice starts having glitches and distortions as a cowbell takes the lead. The track’s eccentricities were largely Collins’ doing, and Bejar admitted “it definitely took me at least half a year to get used to the idea that that song should even exist.” I’m thankful it does, because it’s one of the most compelling things Destroyer has ever done, and their ambition really paid off here.
As the first half of “June” hints, a significant part of Labyrinthitis is surprisingly groovy and full of dance beats. Bejar initially contemplated making a full-on techno album before discarding the idea, yet half the album fits that bill. “All My Pretty Dresses” has a simple dance beat mixed with electric guitar and mellow horns, like a combination of “Tinseltown Swimming in Blood” and “Le regle Du Jeu” from ken. “Eat the Wine, Drink the Bread” sounds quite a bit like New Order, with Collins really echoing Peter Hook’s bass style, while “It Takes a Thief” is straight up disco-rock a’ la !!!. The only electronic outlier here is the single “Tintoretto, It’s For You,” which sounds so ominous you could make it the villain’s theme in a rock opera. It’s got Bejar ranting menacingly during its verses, an intense chorus that explodes in a wall of synthesizers, and even a jazzy outro that sounds like a darker version of Poison Season. It’s certainly an interesting track, and executes its sentiment well, but I would gravitate toward something lighter for repeat listens.
At times, Bejar’s tendencies to err on the side of “inexplicable” create more frustration than any sort of curiosity. The title track is a sonic collage that mixes a drum-and-snare beat, piano, synthesizer and…the babbles of a toddler. This last addition ruins what could have been a decent attempt at trip-hop. “The States” has an excellent contrast between airy strings, somber synths, and a four-on-the-floor house beat, but then ends with a full two minutes of ambient droning that adds nothing. This is a shame, since the track also has some of the most comprehensible lyrics on the album. Bejar is a notoriously cryptic wordsmith, and he does deliver some clever quips on Labyrinthitis like “you have to look at it from all angles says the cubist judge from cubist jail” on “June.” That said, some of the album’s verses are distractingly nonsensical. The line “a snow angel’s a fucking idiot somebody made” in “June” creates an instant “wtf?” moment when listening, while “Eat the Wine, Drink the Bread” opens with “Unfounded accusations/’Ruff, ruff’ goes the beagle to the terrier.” I’m sure these were written in a stream of consciousness style, but maybe having a little bit of a filter would have helped here.
There’s always a risk in taking a “kitchen sink” approach to an album, since a band can end up a jack of all styles but master of none. Fortunately, Labyrinthitis never sounds forced or half-hearted in its experimentations. The only side effect of this method is that the tamer elements (such as the acoustic and too on-the-nose “The Last Song”) end up being overshadowed by the more exciting (“June”). Your mileage may also vary depending on how much you enjoy the various genres attempted, and I might be biased since I love electronic music. Either way, much like how Bejar is still surprised by what Collins comes up with after over a decade working together, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how Destroyer still manages to create something entirely new and top quality after 13 albums.
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