Destroyer of the Void Fills In The Spaces
New LP by classic rock genre-benders plugs gaps in band’s sound and finds a stylistic groove.
Blitzen Trapper
Destroyer Of The Void
Released on Jun 08, 2010
Blitzen Trapper’s releases, particularly 2008’s shambolic but outstanding Furr, have struggled at times to synthesize the band’s varied approach into a cohesive whole. The band’s new LP Destroyer of the Void trades stylistic detours for sonic consistency, and mostly hits the mark. While a more even approach yields few standout, stand-alone gems such as Furr’s essential title track, Destroyer is the band’s most focused effort, and manages to maintain the band’s distinct identity and tendency to draw from a variety of sources while avoiding major missteps.
The band’s myriad influences are on display. The sprawling title track opens the record with a nice vocal harmony and lyrical and instrumental nods to The Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday.” The song features multiple mini-“movements” and keeps footholds in piano balladry, whimsical psychedelia, and churning rootsy rock while never derailing itself thematically. Album highlight “Love and Hate” is a dirty blue-eyed soul rocker featuring an excellent blast of Rhodes piano. The excellent lyric tells a timeless rock n’ roll story of tainted romance, reminding us that “love and hate cohabitate in a lover’s lonely eye…don’t ask why.” A nice surprise late in the album’s sequence is “The Tree,” a straightforward folk ballad featuring a vocal duet with folk-rock artist (and support act for Blitzen Trapper’s 2009 US tour) Alela Diane. Diane’s clear voice is a nice counterpoint to Eric Earley’s idiosyncratic rasp, and recalls collaborations between music luminaries (and artists heavily influencing Earley and Diane, respectively) Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. Also notable are the chugging Tom Petty-like “Evening Star” and the excellently arranged first-person fantasy narrative “The Tailor.”
Melodic and lyrical patterns in the songwriting of lead Trapper Earley , refined over the course of several releases, are visible throughout Destroyer. Earley‘s continued conceptual fixation on the “Western world” weaves in and out of the record, and a short vocal run reminiscent of classic country-rock recordings from the 70s shows up on about half of the album’s songs. The latter could be dismissed as a stylistic tic particular to Earley’s singing, but for the fact that it has played a prominent melodic role in the band’s music since 2007’s Wild Mountain Nation. That Blitzen Trapper’s arrangements tend to be varied and interesting largely prevents Earley’s quirks from inflicting “sameness” upon the work, and themes that carry over between songs (and albums) come off as a sort of calling card for the band. As the vocalist half-celebrates and half-laments on “Sadie,” the album’s standout closing track, “[he] can never change.”
Destroyer of the Void is a solid entry in Blitzen Trapper’s catalog, and a signal that the band has sorted out a method for distilling its sometimes wildly variant sound. Of course, the left-field risks that the group took with Furr and prior efforts was part of what made their recordings exciting. Still, Furr and Wild Mountain Nation served as documentation of a band attempting to find its identity, and it is nice to hear the results. Assured, cohesive, and not forgetting their musically diverse origins, Blitzen Trapper have found their comfort zone and made a record that delivers.
High Point
Good songs and broad influences highlight a confident statement by a band beginning to hit its stride.
Low Point
Lacks the devil-may-care attitude of prior releases by the band, where the listener often had no idea of what was coming next.
Posted by Miguel Harvey on Jun 10, 2010 @ 5:17 pm
