Have We Met - Destroyer: Review
is a Canadian indie pop band fronted by Dan Bejar who have been active since the late 90's running simultaneously with his involvement in Canadian music collective The New Pornographers. Despite acclaimed records in the 2000's like Streethawk: A Seduction and Destroyer's Rubies the project hit its most recognizable and acclaimed point in the 2010's with back to back records that remain some of the best work of the decade.
Review By Lavender:
I was very excited for this record before I had ever heard a note of any of the singles. 2011's Kaputt and 2015's Poison Season are among some of my favorite indie pop albums of the last decade, with the prior being one of the best indie pop records of all time. In 2017 Destroyer dropped a weird transitional record that seemed rushed, but with the three year gap between ken and Have We Met I was hoping that this would be a more fully fledged return to form from Destroyer, and even though it doesn't quite reach the heights of his earlier records last decade, Have We Met is still a treat.
Speaking of those singles the three of them got this era started on the right foot and had me really excited for the album. Crimson Tide was the lead single and opening track and for good reason as it gets off to a hot start with a shimmery instrumental that builds and builds up into absolute bliss. Dan's performance also mirrors this and leads up to an absolutely killer closer despite the fact that it may hang on the end of the song for a little bit longer than I would have liked. The second single was even better and it landed on my singles of the year list last year, the excellent It Just Doesn't Happen. The song is some absolutely perfect songwriting that matches a careening synth line beautifully with the explosion of sound into the hook. Dan's intimate vocals gently guide the song through its different passages and the pairing is such a wonderful treat on the ears. The last of the singles may even be the best of the bunch and is a quintessential track only really Destroyer could make. Cue Synthesizer is an incredibly cheeky track that sees Dan open up the song by calling in all the instrumentation one by one with an undeniable swagger to his performance. The massive punch of both the guitars and percussion absolutely rule and this stands out as the kind of track it feels like Dan was born to make.
One of the best elements of particularly the first half of this record is how beautifully and seamlessly these songs transition from one another. They all stand alone as pretty good tracks but this record should absolutely be enjoyed in its proper order, as the first half of the record in particular benefits from it big time.
There are also a handful of worthwhile tracks we had to wait until the entire album was out to hear. Kinda Dark has an absolutely killer instrumental with a dark and dreamy nighttime vibe that I completely adore. The vocal performance isn't perfect and doesn't have quite the charisma Dan usually brings but the song is so well written it still works wonders. The Television Music Supervisor is one of the more abstract songs here and opens up with a dreamy ambience that sounds like a Public Service Broadcasting instrumental. The vocals are really frontal but have an ethereal echo trail that makes the song a uniquely haunting experience I really enjoy and it all works together in a compelling way.
The record ends off on a pretty high moment as well starting with The Man In Black's Blues which has one of the simpler instrumentals but it hits so hard and I really enjoy it. The song is a short one but very sweet with another charismatic almost club like vocal performance from Dan. This is followed by Foolsong the records closing track and a very worthwhile one at that. It takes its time developing from a dreamy almost Beach House style instrumental into a commanding and powerful ballad that brings the record to a roaring close.
Even when the record isn't perfect I can still see what they were going for. The Raven is one of the looser compositions with some loud piano, distant electric guitar and rattling percussion making up the instrumental. Dan's vocals are as charming as ever but I'm not really in love with any of the songs vocal refrains and the whole track feels like disjointed good parts that never quite fit together. University Hill is another just okay song that feels whole when you finish it, but during its individual moments particularly the painfully long repeated hook refrain, it doesn't really hold up in the moment. For a 3 minute track there feels like barely more than a minutes worth of ideas here. Finally the title track Have We Met isn't necessarily a bad track, just a short instrumetal piece dominated by some deserty electric guitar that gets a little bit stale by the end of the song.
Have We Met isn't quite the record that Poison Season and Kaputt are but that doesn't mean you should skip it, and it doesn't mean that when all is said and done it won't be one of the better indie pop records you'll hear in 2020. There are plenty of creative moments that shine both lyrically and instrumentally across the record and when Beyar gets it right he continues to succeed it making some of the most interesting and sophisticated indie pop music around. 8/10
