“The Same Thing as Nothing at All”, the five-minute, swirling, sing-spoken moment that opens Destroyer’s fourteenth studio album, Dan’s Boogie, is a weirdly premature victory lap that has the seasoned listener imagining singer Dan Bejar reaching out, touching hands with a passionate audience and getting his flowers (literally) as he utters improvable witticisms like, “to have loved and lost is the same thing as nothing at all.” For Destroyer first-timers, the song will work not unlike Jim Carrey portraying Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon’s fourth wall-breaking opening scene in which he attempts to rid the audience of any potential spectators who may not get it. Not unlike that 1999 biopic, those who do get it are rewarded with what comes after.
“Women fill out, men crumble inwards, there, I didn’t want to say it, but I did, my life’s a giant lid closing on an eye,” Bejar speaks in a stream of consciousness poetic ramble that comes across not unlike something The Gun Club (a band mentioned by name during “Hydroplaning Off the Edge of the World”) may have employed. The song utilizes a repeated, female-sung “ba-da-ba” lead line that feels impossibly original given its simplicity and catchiness. The track is an early standout destined to become a Destroyer essential. Dan’s Boogie’s jazzy title track has Bejar playing a crooner over and around 1960’s brass punctuations, cleverly referencing early Destroyer moments with lines like, “I didn’t know what time it was,” while lyrically conjuring an eclectic collection of other acts, including The Crystals, Pet Shop Boys, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.
Dan’s Boogie’s debut single, “Bologna”, finds itself in the LP’s absolute middle. Here, Bejar offers a supporting role to Fiver’s Simone Schmidt who plays the lead in this otherwise sensuous duet with a silly name. Still, Bejar and Schmidt manage to repeat the track’s meaty title to beautiful effect. The brief “I Materialize” brings the thunder and lightning as well as a reference to “song 63, line 275” whose location in the Destroyer catalog is debatable depending on who you ask. “Sun Meet Snow” gathers all the Destroyer lyrical tropes into one moment: sun and snow (obviously), sleeping, waking, kisses, ghosts etc. It’s a song that ends bombastically, walking us directly into Dan’s Boogie’s awkward penultimate moment, “Cataract Time”.
Like the comparatively straightforward album ender on 2022’s Labyrinthitis, “The Last Song”, which featured Bejar accompanied only by an electric guitar, Dan’s Boogie concludes with a similarly simple moment. This time, however, Dan is joined by a piano. Over an easy refrain, “Travel Light” has Bejar singing about traveling light into dark places. It’s an effective moment, one that manages to tie things together rather nicely. Dan’s Boogie is a definite grower…but only so much. In the Destroyer catalog, it finds itself ranked just below Labyrinthitis and just above 2017’s Ken.
Rating: 7.4/10
