Album Review: Destroyer - ken

Now up to album 12 as Destroyer, Dan Bejar, one-time member of The New Pornographers, has fully embraced the world of lush and literate sophisticated synth pop.

Think New Order's primitive machine sound, the avant, collage-like work of The The and Morrissey's lyrical twists and turns of phrase and you're in the right region. Musically there are plenty of glorious post-punk melancholic moments with Bejar obtusely detailing doomed romance, broken love, fame and misfortune - all in his characteristically dramatic and pretentious singing style. The themes may be universal but the sonic setting is specifically England in the mid-'80s, making it a highly successful marriage of poetic and acutely knowing musical nostalgia, not dissimilar to Jack Ladder and Alex Cameron.