Throughout a career spanning more than 15 years and nine albums, Destroyer founder Dan Bejar has drawn numerous comparisons to David Bowie, and for more reasons than just his sound. Bowie is the quintessential rock chameleon; future audiences may just award this title to Bejar. Every album gives us something a little different — the chamber pop of Rubies, the MIDI experimentation on Your Blues, the straight-up indie rock of Trouble in Dreams and we could go on and on.
Kaputt is the culmination of more than a decade and a half of exploration and evolution, a masterful triumph of a musician in the prime of his career.
That said, it’s a soft rock, lite jazz album.
Don’t let that put you off, though. If it makes you feel more comfortable, we can call this album jazz-influenced chamber pop, or describe it as quiet and introspective without sacrificing richness or complexity. We can say Kaputt evokes the distant half-memories of childhood that seem insignificant but that also form an essential part of your identity: snippets of the undersides of tables or of walking through a store holding your mother’s hand.
These descriptions all apply, even if Kaputt is a soft rock album. What makes this tired style work in this context is the fact that it isn’t some kitschy joke. Admittedly, there are flashes of irony, but for the most part, Bejar seems sincere — the lyrics are too challenging and the music too lush for him to simply be messing with his listeners.
The album is tinged with a sense of jadedness, of weary bemusement. Album opener “Chinatown” feels like a draft in late fall that chills you and fills you with a sense of introspection, perhaps even a foreboding feeling. Meanwhile, the title track evokes images of a wiry man in his mid-40s sitting on a barstool, a cigarette smoldering between his fingers as he watches the proceedings, the mating dance of 20-somethings.
“Wasting your days,” Bejar sings in his reedy, delicate way. “Chasing some girls all right / Chasing cocaine to the backrooms of the world all night.”
The words — like the album itself — sound almost like they’re sung through a wry smile.
