She, Him and the Destroyer

by Zach Thomson
April 9, 2008

“All a dagger can ever be/ is a ship against the sea/ turning to snow. ...” So goes an elevated line from Destroyer’s 2004 release, “Your Blues.”

Dan Bejar is a busy man. His head is busy as well. I imagine the strange hum his brain makes in a quiet room. Despite the many projects Bejar is part of—The New Pornographers, Swan Lake and Hello Blue Roses—he is never distracted from Destroyer. Destroyer is the conflation of the best bands of several contemporary decades, including T-Rex, Velvet Underground, Mott the Hoople, David Bowie, The Smiths, Suede, Pavement, Guided by Voices, Plush and Neutral Milk Hotel. Destroyer’s ninth album, “Trouble in Dreams,” is wildly imaginative, freakishly poignant and often beautiful. Some of the songs read like Jose Luis Borges’ notebooks, surreal and magical, while others take on some quirky perspective.

Regardless, Bejar’s musical world is completely artistic—for art’s sake—allegorical and poetic. By the middle of the album, the songs are epic. “Shooting Rockets (From the Desk of Night’s Ape)” is a fantasy, an entire world wrapped up in one song, a nightmare even. The song reminds me of William Butler Yeats’ “Sailing to Byzantium” or “The Tower.” It is philosophical, purposeful, technical, cunning and witty. It ends, Bejar narrating, “We live in darkness, the light is a dream you see. We live in darkness, the light is a dream … shooting rockets …”

“Trouble in Dreams,” as lofty as it is lyrical, succeeds as an inventive contemporary album. It does partly what Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” did so well—that is, it tells its story through image, allusion and metaphor. If you don’t mind confusing lyrics and slightly nasal, Marianne Faithful-like vocals, you should indulge.

Bejar is a new breed of songwriter. He is no social commentator like Bob Dylan or Billy Bragg, nor is he an existential songwriter like Will Oldham or Neil Young; rather, he is Salvador Dali and Cesar Vallejo in song, and it’s up to us to try to make sense of him.


She and Him
She and Him are Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward. She, Deschanel, has been in such films as “All The Real Girls,” “Elf,” “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and “The Good Girl.” Him, Ward, has a handful of albums on Merge Records. His warm, weathered voice—derivative of Stephen Stills and a lighter side of Tom Waits—crackles and soothes smoothly, and to most contemporary music critics, has reached a status of inimitability. Ward’s music combines primitive folk blues (think Skip James and Mississippi John Hurt), Americana and Alt Country (think Calexico and early Wilco).

Their debut, “Volume 1,” released March 18 on Merge, is a blend of traditional country, The Kinks and ’50s doo-w**. Patsy Cline is the record’s muse, and Ward is her means. Ward produced, arranged and did the guitar work on “Volume 1.” Twice he accompanies Deschanel vocally in what are arguably the highlights of the album. Although pleasant, as the album progresses, her voice tires and its uniformity is lost. The duo covers Smokey Robinson’s “You Really Got a Hold of Me,” as well as The Beatles classic “I Should Have Known Better.” She and Him is for fans of Joanna Newsom, Neko Case and Rilo Kiley (Jenny Lewis respectively).

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