(Merge)
Frightening fates await the protagonists of Dan Bejar’s 14th album, but the mercurial Canadian’s perspective and lavish instrumentation are a reminder of beauty’s potential

If Dan Bejar’s musically shifting Destroyer project has a trademark, it’s the art of surprise. The Canadian is a master of strange lyrical koans that transcend the singer’s acerbic tone to brim with weird, warm feeling, set against luxuriant arrangements. To share his headspace is to see a city in a different light – how “the opera house is a jam space for the desperate and insane”, as on the title track of Dan’s Boogie; to take pride in failure: “The family curse was our signature scent,” he sings on Sun Meet Snow. “The world ran from it holding its nose.”

This time, the protagonists of Bejar’s 14th album are feeling similarly side-swiped. Sudden change strands laggards at sea. Ghosts and inclement weather creep in without warning. Darker forces leave Bejar “sick of women missing / In the dark light that hangs / O’er the low-backed side streets”. On the strikingly sweet highlight Cataract Time, Bejar tenderly observes the folly of assuming that “we think we know / Enough to go on”.