Hi, everyone. Dan'sthony Boogtano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Destroyer album, Dan's Boogie.

Here we have the newest full-length LP from Canadian singer and songwriter, Mr. Dan Bejar, aka Destroyer. For decades now, Dan has stood out pretty boldly on the indie singer-songwriter circuit as a true eccentric, a poet, a whimsical pop alchemist. He has built a dense discography off of brand and style as well with this new LP. I believe he is on his 14th studio album.

And going into it, I think I had a pretty clear idea just what to expect, honestly, because I feel like Dan's releases in recent years have just grown more and more comfortable in his style. I mean, while his most recent releases might not come across as wild and raw and passionate as early releases such as Streethawk or even as catchy as unforeseen mid-career career classics such as Kaputt, for example, which is really seen as a sophisticy pop masterwork by many, there is now an assuring confidence in a lot of Dan's work these days, now that it feels like there is just absolutely no question as to what he's going to be doing when he goes into a new record.

If there has been a major change to Dan's sound in recent years, it's most definitely come through an embrace of more theatrical arrangements and instrumentation, bringing a lot of high drama to Dan's often winding, rambling, strange, and funny verses, which there's a certain appeal in for sure, especially as he seemingly gets more and more meta with each new release.

I mean, the title of this new album is Dan's Boogie, after all, and there were some exciting elements to these singles in the lead up to this record for sure, especially "Hydroplaning Off the Edge of the World", which saw Dan embracing this really glamorous and grandiose rock instrumental that was super layered. There was this distorted lofi screaming guitar solo that really drowned out everything else in the mix on the track. That was wild. There was also a spoken word bridge that was pretty captivating, some cute background vocals. The whole thing was very David Bowie-coded, which for Dan, I don't think is a bad move because he does have a weird charisma about him that definitely allows him to pull that vibe off.

This sound and style was also bolstered by an absolutely killer intro track on the record, too. I was hoping the rest of this album would deliver something just as bold, lush, and fun as well. Though, truth be told, the more I listened to this album, the more I felt like this record was just the sound of, on Dan's part, pure complacency.

As, I thought, not only does the remaining track list on this project just not really bring much in terms of vision or focus, but even the performances, I think, leave something to be desired. Like the closing track, for example, which mostly just features some wandering pianos and Dan's more even wandering vocals and poetry. It just sounds like a bad lounge singer performance.

Prior to that, there's also "Cataract Time", which I will say off the bat, I'm not crazy about just because of its doctor office, indie folk, background music-type instrumental. But also I feel like this track features some of Dan's most redundant lyrisism on the entire record, too. Not only because of the closing refrains of the song, but also bars like, "You're tired of pretending / You're tired of playing pretend."

Yes... that is what you just said.

There's also the track "I Materialize", which is this one minute track in the midst of the record that cuts itself off abruptly toward the end, which obviously is super intentional. The lyrics pretty much make reference to that. But I mean, this track ultimately just ends up feeling like a gag in the middle of a record whose tracklist so far is really not all that gratifying. I feel like the song would go down much easier if it were surrounded by material that were just a bit more interesting. Meanwhile, this track actually has one of the strongest starts of any song on the entire album, and it just ends out of nowhere.

"The Ignoramus of Love", I feel like, has some serious potential to it, too, if it were not for the random ambient key interlude that just pops up in the middle of the song, completely ruining the flow of the track. Plus, on top of it, lyrically, there's so many references and bits of context to what Dan is saying on this song. And despite that, there's still not a coherent picture of anything or anyone really coming together. And it makes you wonder, is Dan world-building here like he typically does on a lot of prior songs, or is he just trailing off?

And the song "Balogna", which I did appreciate as a teaser for this album because it does have a vocal feature from fellow Canadian artist Fiver, who most definitely brings a different change of pace vocally speaking to the track. And yes, that piqued my interest. It felt like we were getting some more versatility. It certainly does help the narrative building and storytelling of the album to have a different voice delivering that. But the more I listened to the performance in the context of the album, the more I feel like the singing is just not really that strong to begin with. So unfortunately, it just ends up working against the track, ultimately.

"Sun Meet Snow" has a very psychedelic, powerful, heavy ending, which is maybe something I would have liked to have heard from the album more. I mean, it seems like Dan is really piling on the instrumentation with some of tracks, but not all. But when he's really shooting for the stars with some of these builds and instrumentals, that's when the record tends to be really exciting and really immense. Unfortunately, these moments are just too few on the album to really save it and note it as a consistently good thing about the experience of the album.

Honestly, as it currently stands, this album just feels, I don't know, a little thrown together, unfinished, ill-conceived, and cobbled together from a bunch of disparate parts that don't really build on each other all that well. While in one sense, it is very cool to hear Dan very assured in his own creative bag, as it were, simultaneously, there doesn't really seem to be any true ambition or drive behind this record.

But yeah, unfortunately, there are really only a couple of tracks that I'm coming away from this record excited about. This has to be one of the weaker releases of this current stage of Dan's career, which... I feel like his discography – after a record like this – is really in need of some shake up or new direction or something. I don't know. Which is why I'm feeling a light to decent 5 on this one.

Anthony Fantano. Destroyer. Forever.