When Dan Bejar, AKA Destroyer, went on tour last year in support of
Your Blues, his sixth album, the resulting shows were a shock to
the system for anyone familiar with the CD's swooping, theatrical,
synth-soaked songs. The recording was mostly a solo affair, but Bejar
is no stranger to collaboration, being a sometime member of the New
Pornographers and a frontman for his own ever-shifting combo. So
instead of taking racks of keyboards on the road, Bejar brought along
Vancouver's Frog Eyes — manic, eccentric, ecstatic — as both his
opening act and his backing band.
The result, depending on your angle of attack, was either a
refreshingly raucous take on the overly precious material of Your
Blues, or a whole lot of racket drowning out Bejar's complex
arrangements and coy turns of phrase. (Being a huge fan of Destroyer
but not really of Your Blues, I thought the new songs came off
pretty well; it was the old favorites from Streethawk and
This Night that got half-butchered. But that's another story.)
At one point during Destroyer's New York show, Frog Eyes singer/guitarist Carey Mercer — seemingly not the first person you would hold
up as an example of social well-adjustment (eyes bulging, brow
sweating) — moved across the stage to whisper to the famously reticent
Bejar (eyes downcast, brow covered by curly brown mop). After a short
conference, having gotten a polite reminder, Bejar sheepishly returned
to the mic, offering the audience his only comment of the night: "Thank
you all for coming out…"
With that kind of teamwork on display, it's little surprise that this
gang convened in the studio for a weekend last July and knocked out a
six-song EP of the Your Blues reworkings, called Notorious
Lightning and Other Works. The rough-and-ready tracks do capture
the vibe of the shows, but the disc is similarly likely to split the
audience down the middle. That's a perilous move for a band with only a
cult following, and Notorious Lightning is only sporadically
satisfying, but in a strange way it has to be taken as a long-term
positive sign for Bejar's art: The guy has already proved he has
songwriting talent to burn ("The Sublimation Hour" + "Holly Going
Lightly" + the New Porns' "Testament to Youth in Verse" = proof), so
his changes of direction and occasional flops only serve as signals to
the faithful that the quest is still on, and the best could be yet to
come. (Like, say, on the New Pornographers album later this year...
cross yer fingers.)
Ah, but here we are with THIS album. Things get off on a bad foot when
the title track spends most of its 10 minutes
on a vamping digression with none of the atmosphere that gave
This Night's aimlessness a purpose. As the disc plays on, the
songs are transformed, sure; but, perversely, I wish Bejar had gone even
farther with them. Why make a record with Carey Mercer if you're going
to mix his keening vocals and damaged guitar so low? Why keep nearly
the same synth solo in "Notorious Lightning"? On the bright side, the
uptempo version of "An Actor's Revenge" has more than enough snap and
bite to surpass the original, and "The Music Lovers" is still halfway
to great by the end of its opening line ("Feeling fine, but it must be
the wine/ 'cause it's April 27th and my baby's still dyin' on me").
But ultimately Notorious Lightning just feels like a sketchpad
— an eyeblink for Bejar's musical attention span. As for whether he'll
ever match the towering T.Rex/Bowie blast of Streethawk or the
moodier This Night, I'll take Bejar's word for it as he sings on
"Your Blues":
"Lord knows, I've been trying."
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