Indie Catchup With Destroyer, Spellling, Julien Baker/Torres, Panchiko, & DIrty Projectors: Rapid Fire Reviews
It's time to loop back around on some indie music. At one point or another I absolutely LOVED all 5 of the artists we're going to talk about today, but in an already extremely busy 2025 so far, their newest material fell by the wayside. To amend artists who have made music I love so much, I'm covering them all here instead.
Dan's Boogie - Destroyer
In the early to mid-2010s Dan Bejar, AKA Destroyer, released a pair of albums that really should serve as benchmarks for indie pop and sophisti-pop. Kaputt and Poison Season are both staggeringly good albums that till sound as delightfully fresh and lush today as they did when they came out. Since then Dan has shared a few records I liked, most notably his darker 2020 record Have We Met, but hasn't quite reached the same highs he once did. That wasn't helped when the lead single "Bologna" was a huge letdown for me and one of my least favorite Destroyer singles ever. Thankfully, the era bounced back from there.
The record gets off to a pretty strong start with opener "The Same Thing As Nothing At All" which glides through Dan's nebulous poetry in a way that feels like it's evoking an even earlier time in his career in the 2000s. But it also has this massive array of synths that ebb and flow in a way that feels to easy to get lost in. The poppy sentiments of "Hydroplaning Off The Edge Of The World" did turn me off at first but the refrains and lyrics are classic Dan Bejar. Now the song feels more to me like a solid cut from the other project Dan is affiliated with, The New Pornographers.
The middle portion of the record is probably what prevents me from REALLY falling in love with it. The big culprit is once again the lead single "Bologna" but I also don't much care for the somewhat goofy repetition on "The Ignoramus Of Love." If there's a highlight in the mix, it's the title track, which does a great job quietly building the instrumental up in the background without distracting from Dan's breathy poetry, and then when it all erupts, everything feels so earned and satisfying.
But things improve once we arrive at the oddball "Sun Meets Snow," which is even stranger and more off-kilter than a typical Destroyer song. I actually think some of the orchestration in the second half is a bit TOO much to the point where it's distracting, but it goes in line with the sheer bizarre energy on display throughout the entire song. Again, that gives way to a single with a sweeter sonic palette, but this time it's the wandering lucid "Cataract Time." This was my favorite of the singles with its stable drums, disjointed refrains, and charming sway. I love the way it uses its 8 minutes to fully explore a variety of subtle additions to its core sound and they all sound excellent. Dan's Boogie isn't perfect and the lull in the middle is frankly a bit glaring. But within the album's folds is another solid entry into the Destroyer catalog, even if I'm still waiting for that fabled next masterpiece. 6.5/10
Portrait Of My Heart - Spellling
If you're surprised I didn't get around to covering this release in full, so am I. In a less busy time of year I would have definitely made it a focal point as Tia Cabral is following up her absolutely whimsical 2021 effort The Turning Wheel. And after hearing the lead single and title track for this record turn in a punchier, more rock n' roll direction, I was fascinated to see where else she took it. And make no mistake, this is absolutely Spellling's rock record, but unfortunately, she doesn't do as much with that premise as I was hoping. It was the second single, "Alibi," that really hampered my excitement. Not only did the rock flavors of the song kind of ineffectually gloss over my brain, but it actually felt like the normally tight production and interesting songwriting I've come to expect from Spellling also vanished.
The song that immediately follows "Waterfall" is perfectly representative of that issue seeping into the deep cuts. It does have that kind of lush instrumental arrangement filtered through a heavier, more rock-focused lens, but none of the songwriting strikes me as memorable in any way. Without that grounding, so much of the track's extravagance just feels like noise. "Ammunition" has the same issue with the stilted refrains sucking the life and momentum out of a roaring guitar solo that otherwise sounds great. The worst offender is "Drain" which is genuinely interesting on the sonic front as Spellling wades into her own ornate version of grunge. Yet after listening time and time again through to her refrains the the lovelorn themes, there's just nothing about the song that feels like it has the songwriting ambitions to match what she's undertaking sonically.
But there are moments on the record where Spellling really shines through. The third single, "Destiny Arrives" is one of the only tracks that feels like you could slip it right into Turning Wheel without blinking, and that's just about as high of a compliment as I can give. "Love Ray Eyes" is the best example among the deep cuts where Tia's voice soars over booming drums and electric guitar with the exact same poise it usually does over glittery folk instrumentation. There are also points where the shift into rock works perfectly like the short but thunderous and throttling "Satisfaction" towards the end of the album. Portrait is far from a complete wash. There are some beautiful moments along the way that will warm the hearts of Spellling fans and probably earn her some new admirers. But as an album trying to follow up one of the best indie pop records of this decade so far with a dramatic shift in style, I think it abandons some of what made it's predecessor so good in the first place, and suffers as a result. 5.5/10
Send A Prayer My Way - Torres & Julien Baker
Lesbians rejoice. Two of the defining sapphic singer-songwriters of the last decade have come together to create a collab album of country and folk-tinged singer-songwriter music. As a listener, I'm arriving as someone who has been a big Torres fan for a long time. Though she broke through with a sound more comparable to her indie folk peers on an album like Sprinter, she's wandered to so many more interesting places since then on albums like Thirstier and Three Futures, just to name a few. Julien Baker is a more acclaimed artist, broadly in comparison, though my relationship with her is much more contentious. As someone who has always found her music fascinating at its peak but routinely far too mundane, and someone who thought the beloved boygenius record a few years ago was good, not great, I can't say I'm anywhere near the upper echelon of Julien fans.
But I was pretty excited to see what the pair could concoct, especially after a (mostly) good collection of singles. That started last year with the propulsive indie jam "Sugar In The Tank" which I didn't realize quite how much I love until hearing the full record. The two singer-songwriters also manage to find ways to show off their talent individually, even though the album feels like much more of it is taken up by Torres' voice and vision. The opener "Dirt" is a Julien Baker classic that gets the record started with a gentler touch and softer demeanor but one that finds a lot of beauty in those folds. That contrasts with "Bottom Of A Bottle" a hugely Torres-flavored rootsy country jam about drinking to find happiness with one of my favorite vocal performances on the album.
Other singles on the record wander with their ambition, for better or for worse. I love the song "Silvia" which is the most reminiscent of some of the weirder Torres records like Silver Tongue or last year's What an enormous room. The only deep cut on the record that really made a similar impact on me was "Downhill Both Ways" which takes a more somber but equally engaging approach. Unfortunately, the defining quality of most of the deep cuts here is how little impact they make. They largely model the form of conventional singer-songwriter cuts, and save for the occasional lyrical flourishes, they're mostly unmemorable. Occasionally, they're memorable in the wrong way with cuts like the single "Tuesday" and deep cut "The Only Marble I've Got Left" undercutting their ambitions with completely unnecessary and distracting silliness. Ultimately Send A Prayer is a mixed bag that serves up several worthwhile moments for fans of both songwriters, but doesn't combine them for anything greater than the sum of their parts. 6/10
Song Of The Earth - Dirty Projectors & stargaze
Dirty Projectors have evolved more than most bands are capable of in their 20+ years of operating. Built around the unique vocals and songwriting of David Longstreth they became indie blog favorites in the late 2000s and then a revitalized off-the-wall R&B-flavored solo outfit a decade later before serving up the rotating cast of vocalists and sonic experiments on their 5EPs project back in 2020, and that hardly even begins to cover it. Now, 5 years later, they're in an entirely new form, teaming up with the stargaze orchestra for an environmental concept album that stretches their compositional ambitions further than ever before, and has been divisive as a result. The record presents itself as a series of mostly short motifs with a few bulkier tracks, which slide in and out of conventional indie styles with epic instrumental scores.
And this album is weird right out of the gate. Its first bulky track is "Gimmie Bread" which charmingly dishes out the double entendre of bread as in getting money and bread as in literal bread. But it contrasts that with the epic rushes of orchestral instrumentation, which feel like they inherently convey a serious far outside the bounds of David's cheeky poetry. Regardless, this is when the album is at its very best, letting David wander in the playful ways fans have come to expect and using the orchestration in subtle ways to set up for exciting climaxes. Some of the great motifs from it return much later on the album in the also excellent "Bank On." Just a few tracks after "Bread," the single "Circled In Purple" walks this tightrope perfectly. Much later on the record for "Two Aspens," they recruit Phil Elverum of Mount Eerie fame as a touching and extremely welcome vocal addition that makes for one of my favorite cuts on the record.
On the opposite side of things, we have the more challenging tracks where David's vocals and the voices of his many guests clash with the tremendous chaos of the orchestration. "Opposable Thumb" is a great example of a song that gets this dynamic right on occasion, but refuses to settle into one passage long enough to truly enjoy it as a listener through and through. Occasionally, it's the track listing itself that makes things more difficult than they need to be. After the genuine, fragile beauty achieved by "Dancing On Our Eyelids," you get the record's very most annoying song, "Same River Twice," whose best feature is that it's only 76 seconds.
This record is FAR outside the purview of what most Dirty Projectors fans are familiar with. It's hardly the first time they've experimented with something like this, but returning from a 5-year absence with such an obtuse and conceptual release was bound to be divisive. After my first listen through the album, I thought I might not cover it at all, but I'm glad I stuck with the record. Despite a tracklist that could probably be slimmed down a bit and a concept that relies on occasional over-preaching, there's actually a lot of really interesting material here. The way David's songwriting has evolved to meet the momentum and pacing of the album's orchestration at its best moments is incredibly satisfying. While it certainly begs the question of what will come next for Dirty Projectors, I think it's certainly worth giving a chance for anyone who has enjoyed any iteration of the group thus far. 6.5/10
Gingko - Panchiko
There's an argument that this album's existence is a miracle all on its own. The story of Panchiko is amazing, and I won't recount it all here, but you should go read about the full thing. When they released their long-awaited debut album a few years ago, I gave it a decent review, which in retrospect I realize was kind of blinded by hype. The album was received pretty poorly by fans and I honestly thought the band's story would end there. That's probably why I let this record pass me by originally in the thick of a busy release week. But as it turns out, this is kind of the exact follow-up I was always hoping Panchiko had in them.
Gingko adopts a sound palette that plays with space and subtlety so much more than the album that preceded it, and frankly, it's a fantastic change of pace. The title track predicted the sound with an infectious sway wrapped around gentle singing and an earworm refrain that hasn't left my brain since I first heard it. I also loved "Honeycomb" which sees the band leaning into even poppier intentions and coming out the other end with just as catchy of a hook. And then they go the other way on the slinky piano lead "Mac's Omelette" and I honestly love all three of these tracks.
The second single, "Shady In The Graveyard," really deserves a mention all on its own. The track has a feature from underground critical darling rapper billy woods, something I genuinely thought was a mistake when I first saw it on Spotify. But surprisingly, his reserved demeanor slots flawlessly into the world of the band on both a straightforward first verse and a chopped-up outro. That gives way to a few great deep cuts as well. "Florida" teams up with the singles to get the record off to a pretty great start. Meanwhile "Lifestyle Trainers" is a dramatic Radiohead-style deep cut that punctuates a masterful first half to the album. ,
Admittedly, some of the momentum of Gingko does start to waver. Second half cuts like "Vinegar" and "Formula" slip into a sillier posturing that is largely absent on the rest of the record. Despite that, I'm so refreshed by how strong a showing this is from a band I had mostly written off. Not only do they capture some of what made their original warped material so eerie and appealing, they also manage to push their sound in new directions and play with their cold sonic spaces in brand new ways, to mostly great results. 7.5/10
