Destroyer
Poison Season
MERGE
7/10
Poison Season—Destroyer’s latest full-length—makes good on the sax-strewn promises of 2011’s Kaputt and jolts them into anthems for the ecstatically tired denizens of Dan Bejar’s mind. The album masterfully illustrates Bejar’s attraction to songs featuring “a balancing act between noble sentiments and lost causes,” especially within highlight track “Dream Lover.” The song undercuts its sunshine squall with the stomach-sinking realization that “I think I used to be more fun / Ah shit, here comes the sun.” It’s surprising and played completely straight—this is exactly the kind of theater in which Bejar specializes. On top of those emotional juxtapositions, Poison Season as a whole plays to Bejar’s greatest strength: the understanding that repetition opens more doors than it closes. “You could fall in love,” he repeats and repeats in the album’s spinal songs, the “Times Square” trilogy. In Bejar’s mouth, it’s the ultimate punch line. And then, it isn’t.
