Hey, what's got into Sunny?Ĭopyright © 2015 NPR. SIEGEL: The new record from Destroyer is called 'Poison Season.' Our critic, Will Hermes, is the author of 'Love Goes To Buildings On Fire.'ĭESTROYER: (Singing) Hey, what's got into Sunny? Bring out your dead, bring out the light and bring out your dog. Hey, what's got into Sunny? Bring out your dead, bring out the light and bring out your dog. And that's a person I think a lot of us can recognize.ĭESTROYER: (Singing) So bring out your dead, bring out the light and bring out your dog. It suggests a person for whom the apex of emotional expression, inescapably and maybe embarrassingly, might actually be a pop song. But what I like most about the album is how it balances irony with a giving in to the seduction of the music. HERMES: Part of the record's gravity is also in the extravagant arrangements, kind of a hallucinatory channeling, orchestrated 1950s balladry and classic rock radio. Now I'm dark as a well, a kite washed up on the shoreline. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, 'HELL IS AN OPEN DOOR')ĭESTROYER: (Singing) Baby, it's dumb. Part of it is his phrasing, which has always been flamboyant, but it takes on a new sort of precision here. But one of the reasons I think 'Poison Season' could be Bejar's best record is how completely he sounds invested in these lyrics. The writing on the wall mentions honey playing a game with the waves. Perhaps never in the music's history has the sound of quotation marks around lyrics come through so clearly.ĭESTROYER: (Singing) The writing on the wall said Jesus saves. WILL HERMES, BYLINE: Dan Bejar is a great rock 'n' roll musician in part because you sense he thinks the whole enterprise is slightly ridiculous.

The writing on the wall wasn't writing at all - just forces of nature in love with a weather station. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, 'TIMES SQUARE, POISON SEASON I')ĭESTROYER: (Singing) Jesus is beside himself. Here's Will's take on Destroyer's latest album. Reviewer Will Hermes says the destruction this singer manages is in his remarkable and sometimes ironic way with language. SIEGEL: Destroyer's real name is Dan Bejar, and he's from Vancouver, Canada. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, 'MIDNIGHT MEET THE RAIN')ĭESTROYER: (Singing) You make a plea for me to come to my senses, just like the time before, the time before that. The musician we're going to hear about goes by the name Destroyer.

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