Just when you think you can put your finger on Dan Bejar, he switches it up on you again. My worship of the man spans back to seeing that Destroyer was opening for The New Pornographers on the Twin Cinema tour and doing my due diligence to make sure I would at least know what I was getting into. That ended up being one of my all time favorite shows, and I was a Destroyer mark for life. At that point Streethawk: A Seduction was my favorite, and over the years my favorite Destroyer LP has shifted as much as their sound. This Night had a moment before Destroyer’s Rubies became one of my favorite albums of that decade. I got into Your Blues late, sometime between Trouble in Dreams and Kaputt. In terms of artistry, Kaputt feels like Bejar’s magnum opus. Where Trouble in Dreams continued on the baroque and verbose indie rock of Rubies, Kaputt blew it all up again and delivered an album of sprawling, synthed-out grooves that somehow felt like the truest form of Dan Bejar. What makes Kaputt so spectacular is how each song feels like an event, and yet this is one of the most cohesive albums of the decade. It’s an album that rewards each consecutive listen, and where your favorite song shifts from week to week. Although that last statement might not be true, since “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker” (written in collaboration with Walker herself) is likely the decade’s most brilliant and beautiful lyric sheet. That said, the title track is another close contender, but who is keeping score at this point? Bejar’s later Destroyer releases in the decade--Poison Season and ken--were both fine records but felt like they were living in the comedown of Kaputt. Yet that is not meant to imply that Bejar is cooked, as I suspect he’s recharging for another masterpiece in the 2020s.
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