Destroyer played Paradise Rock Club – 10/10
Dan Bejar’s Destroyer returned to the ‘Dise with support from singer/songwriter Jennifer Castle.
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The Destroyer story is a rich one. Coming into being in the mid-’90s as an outlet for singer/songwriter Dan Bejar’s lo-fi musings, the project evolved into a sort of indie-folk outfit before venturing into glam rock, chamber pop, MIDI orchestration and the occasional ambient detour – and that was all *before* Kaputt, a stroke of sophisti-pop genius that raised the band’s profile as an unlikely mid-career breakthrough in the early 2010s.
Now revered as an oughts highlight, Kaputt’s legacy continues to loom and linger in the typical Destroyer setlist, but Bejar and co. have kept on making compelling records since. 2017’s ken and 2020’s Have We Met leaned into artful synthpop, while 2022’s LABYRINTHITIS and March’s Dan’s Boogie have embraced denser, weirder arrangements and freeform approaches to Bejar’s cryptic, compelling lyricism.
On top of being his funniest album title to date, Boogie is my favorite Bejar release of the past few, so it was a delight to hear it come to life earlier this month in front of an adoring crowd at the Paradise. The Destroyer live band – currently a six-piece, plus Bejar on vocals – has long been an impressive unit, but here they sounded particularly locked in on both the staples and the new tunes. Dueling electric guitars, treated trumpet and a rhythm section that could get flat-out danceable brought cohesive color and shape to varying corners of the Destroyer catalog, highlighted with particular flair on the set-closing 1-2 of a soaring “Hydroplaning Off the Edge of the World” and an immersively lush “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker.” The ensemble could also tear into a relatively lean rocker on cue, as they did for the cathartic Destroyer’s Rubies highlight “European Oils” and early-’00s throwback “Streethawk I.” Bejar, meanwhile, cast his enigmatic poet’s spell above it all, sly and unknowable but bearing an elusive smile that proved he was having fun up there.
If I have any qualms with the Destroyer live experience these days, it’s that I’d love to hear them dig a tad deeper into the discography. I’m as fond of “Chinatown” and the crew’s other current standards as the next guy, but at each gig I find myself wondering how a band this tight and versatile might breathe some organic texture into the electronic skeleton of Your Blues, or rearrange a This Night deep cut. Then again, this is Bejar’s domain; I can catch my rarities at the occasional acoustic tour and appreciate the full-band majesty as it’s presented.
Opener Jennifer Castle – who you might’ve heard in a feature on season three of FX’s fine-dining-kitchens-are-almost-as-stressful-as-your-family exposé The Bear – set the stage for the night with a simple and lovely acoustic set, before joining the band later on to duet with Bejar on new song “Bologna.” See photos from the whole night below.
