TRANSVERSO

- A culture magazine reaching terminal verbosity -

Destroyer

The Top 30 Records of 2015

Music ListTransverso MediaComment
2015 year end photo.png

3. Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars

Thank Your Lucky Stars acts as both an extension of and pivot point for Beach House’s career as a whole. Many may want the band to actively change in a progressive way, but the band chooses to continually broaden their sound in the most familiar and microscopic ways possible instead. Perhaps one of the best integration of all five preceding albums, you hear the metronome, drums are crisper, individual instruments are audible, and Victoria Legrand’s lyrics are unexpectedly discernible at certain points. It's what works for them, and its afforded Beach House the ability to carve out a dream-pop legacy (and avoid becoming a caricature) on their own terms.

 

2. Majical Cloudz - Are You Alone?

Are You Alone? takes off where the Montreal duo’s preceding Impersonator left off; a paradox of bare-bones, minimalist soundscapes ebbing with lush depth that are somehow simultaneously tranquilizing and uplifting. Welsh’s immaculately vulnerable monologues and unflinching vocals are gently bold, and they drive their synth lullabies forward with severe care. It's Welsh at his most overbearing, and yet his tight grip is irresistible. Calculatedly organic, passionately controlled, it’s a journal reading in a dream.

 

 

1. Tame Impala - Currents

Currents is the most adventurous, interesting, and well-produced collection of songs Kevin Parker has created thus far, sitting atop Tame Impala's discography as the most mature and painstakingly crafted iteration in their twisted psych-pop world. From the lush synth tracks that bubble through the mix to his effortless, washed out vocals, every sound is rendered with the utmost care. Currents proves Parker is unable to stick with a certain sound, forever looking for new ways to evolve his ideas and push his project beyond what was expected when Innerspeaker first hit the shelves.

 

Destroyer Ushers in a 'Poison Season'

Music ReviewSebastian MarquezComment

Ah, Dan Bejar, with your linen shirts, lah-dah-dahs and wonderfully verbose lyrical content, welcome back. After four long years, Poison Season is Destroyer’s latest offering to the industry he loves to routinely criticize.

What initially comes to mind is how it might compare to the preceding record, 2011's Kaputt, though you can’t approach this LP the same way. It's not that the two aren’t comparable, though; the players on Poison Season were all part of the band Bejar put together for the Kaputt tour. 

What we have here, however, is an altogether different album. For those who were introduced to the world of Destroyer with Kaputt, it could be feasible they might not like Poison Season; Gone are the new age ambient workouts like "Poor In Love" and the sad-boy disco stomp of that damn near perfect title-track. Poison Season is a live band playing Destroyer songs, and good ones at that.

That's not to say that the ambience is completely lost, as evident in "The River"’s soothing presence, it’s just presented differently. In interviews Bejar has compared this setup he’s got going on to the likes of Billy Joel, and, at risk of sounding like a yes-man, yes, the instrumentation does remind a bit of Billy Joel and the like.

Above everything, though, we still have Bejar’s sense of melody and always outstanding understanding of why English can be such a cool language when put to music. His deft turns of speech and beautifully surreal imagery (like on "Forces From Above"), ear for little details (the lone saxophone in the right speaker holding its note out at the end of "Times Square" just does things to me, man), and deft use of older lyrical cliches for his own purposes ("Sun in the Sky") all serve as reminders that Dan Bejar knows what he’s doing here.

Let the record wash over you. Pay attention to what he has to say because, hell, whatever it is he’s trying to say sounds really pretty when he says it.