Destroyer (don't let the name fool you)

I think I just found the band for my 30s. It's like when I first discovered The Smiths and The Stone Roses in my teens, and Felt and Belle & Sebastian in my 20s. I've had Destroyer's new album "Destroyer's Rubies" for quite some time now from a friend but never really bothered to listen to it until it kept popping up on the iPod on tour (it's very intuitive, my iPod). And now, a month later, Destroyer is all I listen to. I downloaded and bought all the other LPs once I got home. I've never been into one particular artist this intensely in a very long time. Dan Bejar (aka Destroyer) is a brilliant poet and his music are works of art - dense, literate, referential, melodic, sweeping. It's like the perfect soundtrack for me at present, it says everything I'm feeling now, have felt and want to feel. You see, I get very affected by music, especially lyrics... Some painter girl must have really hurt him in the past... And it's not just about love and despair; Mr. Bejar throws down the gauntlet for other writers, challenging them, especially East Coast ones to step up their game, to be ready for the bout.

And the asinine thing is that Destroyer recently played in LA but I hadn't "discovered" him yet; I was probably at home working on this silly blog.

Here are two of my favorite songs from his 2001 album, Streethawk: A Seduction -
Farrar, Straus & Giroux (Sea of Tears).mp3
The Bad Arts.mp3