Destroyer (band)

Destroyer
Destroyer performing at Flow Festival in Helsinki, Finland on August 12, 2011
Background information
Origin	Vancouver, BC, Canada
Genres	Indie rock
Years active	1995 (1995)–present
Labels	Tinker Granted Passage Cassettes Merge Talitres
Associated acts	The New Pornographers Swan Lake Hello, Blue Roses Points Gray
Members	Dan Bejar Scott Morgan John Collins Ted Bois Nicolas Bragg Tim Loewen Fisher Rose Joseph Shabason JP Carter David Carswell Joshua Wells

Destroyer is a Canadian rock band from Vancouver, British Columbia fronted by singer-songwriter Dan Bejar and formed in 1995. Destroyer songs are characterized by abstract, poetic lyrics and idiosyncratic vocals. The band's discography draws on a variety of musical influences, resulting in albums that can sound markedly distinct from one another; in Bejar's words, "That's kind of my goal: to start from scratch every time."

We'll Build Them a Golden Bridge, Destroyer's 1996 debut, is made up of sixteen lo-fi home-recordings. One reviewer suggested that the album combines Bejar's "gift for melodies" with “a concerted effort to make the recording downright inconsumable; the guitars are always out of tune, and the vocals of Fisher-Price quality. 'Static means punk / tuning is junk,' Bejar moans on one track.” (Ideas for Songs, released on cassette in 1997, features songs akin to those on his first album. The cassette stemmed from a request to contribute songs for a compilation album.)

As Bejar gained popularity in Vancouver's music scene, he was joined by producer John Collins for 1998's City of Daughters, which was recorded at a proper studio.Pitchfork noted that the songs still sounded "homespun," also noting "[t]he wordiness that would become something of a trademark is in full effect," but that "unlike much of what came later, not every line is worthy of examination."

Thief (2000) embodied "Bejar's first stab at matching his grandiose, idiosyncratic vision to a showier sound;" it was the first to feature a backing band on every track. The record's "anthemic yet understated" piano-driven ballads have characteristically enigmatic lyrics, though some reviewers interpreted them as critiques of the music industry.

Streethawk: A Seduction (2001) realized the sonic refinement started with City of Daughters. Bejar put it this way: "I don't think it gives credence to any kind of conceptualization of the records, but I hope that City of Daughters, Thief, and Streethawk will pop into some kind of a progression that ends with Streethawk.“ A critical success, the album (retrospectively) received a rating of 9.1/10 from Pitchfork.