Dan Bejar's work with the New Pornographers can always be counted upon to be the most off-kilter, artsy songs on the record. He has an eye for over-running lyrics and an ear for gracefully dancing melodies, both of which reach an apex on Destroyer's Rubies. The album kicks out with the sprawling "Rubies", which showcases such typical dramatic lyrics as "all good things must come to an end/the bad ones just go on forever/isn't that what I just said?" and "Quiet Ruby, someone's coming/oh, it's just your precious American underground/and it is born of wealth/with not a writer in the lot". That last line is telling; Bejar fancies himself as the intellectual author of the Oughts' indie set, and Destroyer's Rubies is the closest album to proving him correct. It's sort of a lyrics geek's wet dream, especially when backed with such heady, tightly conceived indie-pop instrumentation. Overshadowed though he is by his better-known supergroup, anyone with a love for the language owes it to themselves to pick up this record.
Where You'd Know It From: More people will have heard of the New Pornographers than of the various solo works spawning from it (except maybe for Neko Case), but the indie heads will probably already have this album.
Track Listing:
1. Rubies (9:25)
2. Your Blood (4:14)
3. European Oils (4:52)
4. Painter In Your Pocket (4:09)
5. Looters' Follies (7:25)
6. 3000 Flowers (3:46)
7. A Dangerous Woman Up To A Point (6:01)
8. Priest's Knees (3:06)
9. Watercolours Into The Ocean (4:43)
10. Sick Priest Learns To Last Forever (5:53)
("Rubies")
("European Oils")
("3000 Flowers")
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