A Beginner’s Guide to the eclectic art-rock of Destroyer

Destroyer is a band, a constantly shifting and evolving project that’s long featured John Collins, David Carswell, Ted Bois and Nicholas Bragg. Destroyer is also synonymous with Dan Bejar, the Vancouver singer/songwriter who’s been recording and performing under the name since the mid-’90s. Bejar is Destroyer, but Bejar is also the guiding force in a greater whole, a fascinating and appropriate paradox given the complexity and labyrinthine nature of Bejar’s own songwriting. But it’s also probably for the best, in the scheme of things, that they’re not called Dan and the Destroyers. (Apologies to George Thorogood.)

To a degree, you know a Destroyer song when you hear it, in large part because of Bejar’s unmistakable knack for building entire worlds within a four-minute pop song, rife with vivid imagery, nods to songs from decades past and even an occasional self-referential riff. “The process does not really change too much,” Bejar told Treble back in 2017. “I still am descended upon by language with some kind of melodic thread attached to it, and it makes my heart beat faster when it comes, so I remember it.”

Yet every Destroyer album is different. Stylistically, they shift gears consistently, whether roaring into glam-rock bombast on Streethawk: A Seduction, or smoothing out the rough edges on the ’80s-inspired sounds of Kaputt. What never changes is the strength of the songwriting, rife with memorable melodies and indelible images, a singular expression from a singular voice.

Ahead of the release of Bejar’s latest, Dan’s Boogie—which I should also note is fantastic and should absolutely be on your must-hear list—I’ve selected five of the Best Destroyer albums to start you on your journey through his rich and rewarding catalog, plus next steps and advanced listening for those who want to keep it going. (And believe me, you should.)

Note: When you buy something through our affiliate links, Treble receives a commission. All albums included are chosen by our editors and contributors.

Streethawk: A Seduction (2001)

Destroyer draws heavily from rock history, lyrically, referencing everything from Led Zeppelin to Dylan and, for the real heads, Incredible String Band. But Streethawk: A Seduction was the first great rock ‘n’ roll album in the Destroyer catalog. Bejar adopts the aesthetics of glam-rock in the dramatic pomp and hook-laden riffs of “The Sublimation Hour,” and provides some bombastic piano-rock climaxes in “Streethawk I.” But while the sound of the record is more Roxy Music and Bowie, several of its most affecting lyrical moments are inspired by Joy Division, whether via the devastating account of Curtis’ suicide on “Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (Sea Of Tears)” or providing a sing-along moment from “Disorder”‘s coda (“You’ve got the spirit/Don’t lose the feeling“) on the moving “The Bad Arts.” It’s an ambitious but not overstuffed record, a thrilling introduction and continuously rewarding document of Bejar’s songwriting—one that still hits a tender spot more than two decades later.

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Your Blues (2004)

Destroyer’s signature sound is a moving target, having begun as lo-fi home-recorded songs and eventually building up into richly arranged art-pop sprawl, the latter of which reached an early ambitious peak with 2002’s nearly 70-minute This Night. But just two years later, Bejar adopted a wildly different approach with Your Blues, wherein his spectacular melodies are backed by MIDI orchestration. A risky venture, but one that only an artist like Dan Bejar could pull off—opulent grandeur with more than a little camp and irreverence. But it’s grandeur all the same, as made clear from the bombastic opener “Notorious Lightning,” which is as heroic an opener as you’ll hear on any Destroyer album. Sometimes the best moments are the simplest, like the acoustic guitar and synth pairing of “It’s Gonna Take An Airplane,” the dreamy, Fleetwood Mac-quoting “The Music Lovers,” or the reverberations of piano on the title track. It perhaps takes a little getting used to, but bear witness to its presence and watch notorious lightning surround you.

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Destroyer’s Rubies (2006)

In the interview quoted above, Bejar described how the process of writing his 2006 album Destroyer’s Rubies differed from his later approach: “I felt compelled for some reason to just spit out as many kind of images flashing upon my mind, as many as humanly possible, and yet still make it sound like music somehow, and phrased as music.” Indeed, there are a lot of words and a lot of images on Rubies, which at times presents Bejar’s music at its most overwhelming. Just take the nine-minute title opener, a rock operetta pocked with references to Bob Dylan, Creedence, Otis Redding and even Destroyer’s own past works. (He does that a lot, one of his endearing traits as a songwriter.) But amid this epic mixtape grandeur are some of his most beautifully arranged songs, like the stunning cascades of piano on “European Oils” or the sweetly melancholy “Painter in Your Pocket,” or even the riff-driven surge of “3000 Flowers.” Its rich volume of verses likewise lends itself to being one of Bejar’s most quotable albums as well, including the rare occurrence of a call-and-response line that began to take place at live shows (which he never planned on): “She needs to feel at ease with her father—the fucking maniac.”

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Kaputt (2011)

Kaputt is Destroyer’s most acclaimed album, a masterpiece of slick, sophisticated pop that trades the ornate chamber pop of albums like Rubies or the glam-influenced rock anthems of Streethawk in favor of a smoother, slicker, ’80s-indebted pop sophistication. Think less Bowie, more Blue Nile and Prefab Sprout. There are saxophone solos, glossy textures, tastefully funky bass grooves and more than a little misty Avalon drama to go around. The songs are also consistently some of the greatest Bejar’s ever written, from the jazz-pop opener “Chinatown” to the rock stardom hallucination of the title track (“Sounds, Smash Hits, Melody Maker, NME/All sound like a dream to me“) and the sprawling space disco of “Bay of Pigs.” It also features one of Destroyer’s most poignant songs, “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker,” a collaboration with visual artist Walker, who provided a series of phrases on cue cards for Bejar to adapt into lyrics, such as “Wise, old, dead and black in the snow: My Southern sister.” Like every Destroyer record, Kaputt rewards repeat listens because of just how much there is to dig into, though its slick grooves make it a delight from the first drop of the needle.

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)

Labyrinthitis (2022)

I’m tempted to say that Dan Bejar is in the midst of a particularly hot streak of albums, including his latest, Dan’s Boogie, but it’s not as if there’s ever been any real dip in quality over the past three decades. Still, Bejar’s ability to find new facets of his music to explore—while continuing to release albums that are quintessentially, definitively Destroyer—is inspiring to say the least. His last album, 2022’s Labyrinthitis, is one of his best, and that’s saying a lot. Where so much of his body of work comprises album-length exercises in embracing a particular aesthetic or approach, Labyrinthitis is simply that most satisfying of things when it’s done as well as this is: a great rock record. There’s an urgent, full-band sound throughout the record that makes it a natural fit for live performances, as evident in the pulsing rhythm and synths of “Suffer” or the dense dream-pop and restrained lyrical delivery of “It’s In Your Heart Now.” Like every Destroyer album, however, there’s one song here that just runs away with it, the poetically atmospheric sprawl of “June.” It’s rife with gorgeous sophisti-pop flourishes that recall 2011’s Kaputt, while its epic lyrical tome harbors everything from poignancy (“How the arithmetic of this guitar melts your heart is beyond me“) to punnery (“You have to look at it from all angles/Says the cubist judge from a cubist jail“) to profanity (“A snow angel’s a fucking idiot someone made“).

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)

Next Steps: I genuinely had trouble choosing between Destroyer’s last two albums for the fifth album in this guide, so make sure after hearing Labyrinthitis to give 2020’s Have We Met a spin. Though it’s a bit less driven by a live-band sound, its highlights such as “Cue Synthesizer” and “Crimson Tide” are among some of the best in his catalog. For another a sampling of Bejar at his most grand and ambitious, check out 2002’s This Night, which at a 68-minute double-album length remains his most sprawling work, yet one that contains no shortage of inspired art-rock standouts. And this is more a personal preference than anything, but I’ve long been a fan of 2015’s Poison Season, E Street Band-inspired saxophone and all.

Advanced Listening: I’m always an advocate for going back to the beginning of an artist’s catalog, and City of Daughters—Destroyer’s debut album from 1998—shows that Bejar more or less arrived fully formed, even if the arrangements are a little more stripped down and the production a bit humbler. His new wave and post-punk-leaning album from 2017, ken, is likewise a great set of songs that shows what Bejar and his bandmates can do with a bit more streamlining of aesthetic. And if you’re looking for, simply, an excellent set of Destroyer songs—nothing more, nothing less—2008’s Trouble In Dreams is just that.

Plus, you might have heard of another of Bejar’s bands, The New Pornographers?

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